Photonics Handbook

Diffraction gratings are optical components with a periodic structure that separate light into beams traveling in predictable directions based on their wavelength. The grating acts as the dispersive...

Silicon photonics is widely considered a key enabling technology for further development of optical interconnect solutions needed to address growing traffic on the internet. From the first submarine...

Superresolution optical microscopy, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner in 2014, has been one of the most momentous developments in the life...

There are three fundamental properties of light: intensity, wavelength, and polarization. Almost all cameras today are designed for monochrome or color imaging. A monochrome camera is used to measure...

Since its first successful operation in 1960 at Hughes Research Labs, the laser technology has been at the center of innovation and research. Semiconductor lasers first made their appearance in 1962...

Many common spectroscopic measurements require the coordinated operation of a detection instrument and light source, as well as data acquisition and processing. Integration of individual components...

Laser development for the microscopy market continues to be driven by key trends in applications, which currently include superresolution techniques, multiphoton applications in optogenetics and...

What are thin-film coatings? The purpose of any optical thin-film coating is to modify the transmittance and reflectance properties of the substrate material to which they are applied. Most coatings...

In their earliest forms, UV bandpass filters that were optimized for wavelengths less than 400 nm, such as the Schott UG or the Hoya U-series, were constructed of absorbing compounds in glass. Such...

The wavelength range of commercially available LEDs with single-element output power of at least 5 mW is 275 to 950 nm. Each wavelength range is made from a specific semiconductor material family,...

The common polycrystalline materials used for optical thin-film materials do not satisfy the requirements of telecommunications because of the instabilities caused by moisture absorption in their...

The ubiquitous Nd:YAG laser has played many roles over the years. For the military, it has provided rangefinding and target designation capabilities. When used with nonlinear optics or as a pump...

If we were to estimate the output of a CCD or thermal camera, we would typically draw an image over the detectors, aligning the image with the detector axes. We show it this way because it’s...

Since their invention in the late 1960s, charge-coupled devices, also called CCDs, have found widespread use in imaging applications. Electronic cameras based on CCD technology are used in...

Optical coatings are deposited as thin-film multilayers of a variety of materials using specific deposition techniques. Coatings are applied to optical components that are intended for use at...

To the novice or casual user of optics, the acquisition of an optical system can be a very difficult experience. Failure to understand the ground rules can result in unnecessarily high cost, late...

The basic difference between the household mirror and the optical mirror is that one is coated on the back surface and the other is coated on the front. For optical applications, a front-surface...

Controlling and minimizing heat output is desirable in most lighting applications. For example, conventional incandescent light sources are very inefficient with only a small portion of the...

Applications facilitated by tunable lasers fall into two categories: situations in which one or more discrete wavelengths are not available from any single- or multiline fixed-wavelength laser, or...

The market for flat panel displays (FPDs) has undergone tremendous growth, driven mostly by increased demand for televisions, cell phones, computers, digital cameras and MP3 players. Similarly,...

All optical spectrometry techniques rely on the measurement of radiant power. The configuration of the instrument varies based on the measurement technique: absorption, emission, luminescence, or...

An optical coating engineer is frequently confronted with a difficult specification for a coating. Often the difficulty in the specification results from the particular form of the optical system. If...

Conditions on the factory floor and in industrial cleanrooms with high-capacity air filtration systems can hamper the use of interferometry. Another problem is the testing of large-aperture mirrors...

Optics today needs alchemy, and the forces that motivate microchip technology are a key reason why. Today, light can transmit and process digital information as well as electricity can — in...

Reading and writing systems for polygonal scanners differ in the use of the scanner. However, many performance characteristics are similar for both. In writing applications, a light source, usually a...

Lenses come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials. They can be made of a single piece of glass or have multiple elements; their surfaces can be spherical, aspheric or cylindrical; they can be...

Laser diodes vary widely in their wavelengths, powers, spectra and beam quality. Yet they share two fundamental components with all other lasers: an optical amplifier and a resonator that confines...

NSOM is suitable for studies on the mesoscopic scale (several tens to hundreds of molecular dimensions). It has become an important tool in research and applications of semiconductors, organic layers...

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is an experimental tool in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. The basic principle involves photographic recording of the motion of microscopic particles that follow...

There are three fundamentally different dispersive phenomena in optical fiber, of which polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is the most complex. In digital multimode fiber systems, a light pulse...

The use and importance of colorimetry has grown in unison with the increase of global manufacturing and processing. When plastic automotive trim produced on one continent must match a painted metal...

To Isaac Newton the problem was clear, and in 1704 he realized the effects of atmospheric turbulence on image formation. Just as heat waves shimmering above a hot patch of ground can distort our...