Photonics Dictionary

Attosecond photonics sources refer to devices or systems that generate extremely short pulses of light on the order of attoseconds (1 attosecond = 10-18 seconds). These ultrafast light pulses are in...

An autocollimator is an optical instrument used for measuring small angular deviations with high precision. It operates on the principle of autocollimation, where a light source is directed onto a...

A blue diode laser is a type of semiconductor laser that emits light in the blue wavelength range of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically between 400 and 500 nanometers. Diode lasers are compact,...

A fiber optic spectrometer is a device used for measuring the spectral content of light. It utilizes optical fibers to transmit light from a source to a spectrometer unit, where the light is...

A microscope that uses a flying spot scanner, directed through the eyepiece, as a light source to determine the features of a transparent specimen. The flying spot is modulated by the varying density...

A GaAlAs laser is a type of semiconductor laser diode that emits light in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is composed of layers of gallium, aluminum, and arsenic, hence...

A field of physics that deals with light as if it truly were composed of rays diverging in various directions from the source and abruptly bent by refraction or turned by reflection into paths...

High harmonic generation (HHG) refers to a nonlinear optical process in which intense laser light interacts with a gaseous medium, typically an atom or a molecule, to produce harmonics of the...

An image intensifier, also known as an image intensification tube or image intensification device, is a specialized electronic device used to amplify low-light-level images to make them visible to...

A laser crystal, also known as an active medium or gain medium, is a solid-state material used in the construction of lasers. The primary function of the laser crystal is to amplify light by...

Optical artifacts refer to undesired or unintended effects that can occur in optical systems, such as microscopes, cameras, telescopes, and other optical instruments. These artifacts can distort or...

A concave mirror that has the form of a paraboloid of revolution. The paraboloidal mirror may have only a portion of a paraboloidal surface through which the axis does not pass, and is known as an...

A chemical substance that exhibits fluorescence when excited by ultraviolet radiation, x-rays or an electron beam. The amount of visible light is proportional to the amount of excitation energy. If...

Photovoltaic (PV) refers to a technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity using semiconductors. The term "photovoltaic" is derived from the words "photo," meaning light, and...

Raster scanning is a technique used in imaging and scanning systems to systematically capture and process information from a two-dimensional area or surface. It involves moving a sensor or scanning...

Ray tracing is a rendering technique used in computer graphics to simulate the way light interacts with objects in a scene. It involves tracing the path of rays of light as they travel through a...

A device that is used to determine the index of refraction of a gas or liquid through the interference patterns formed by two beams of light, one of which has been transmitted by the sample. A single...

A reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is a key component in wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical communication networks. It allows for flexible and dynamic routing of...

A means of high resolution study through the application of soft and hard x-rays onto a sample surface in order to obtain image information from 1-10 nm layers and surfaces. The x-ray source emission...

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to obtain high-resolution, three-dimensional images of the surfaces of solid specimens. SEM achieves this by...

Seidel aberrations refer to a set of monochromatic aberrations in optical systems, named after the German mathematician and physicist Ludwig von Seidel. These aberrations describe deviations from...

A synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields to steer charged particles, typically electrons or positrons, in a closed, circular or elliptical path. The name synchrotron...