Photonics Dictionary

A material's ability to undergo plastic deformation, specifically elongation, without fracturing.

Propagation of electromagnetic waves through the Earth's atmosphere in a path that conforms to the curvature of the Earth due to atmospheric thermal inversion. Regions of the atmosphere act as a...

A spectral phenomenon in which the degree of the photoresponse of an illuminated semiconductor is determined by the wavelength composition of the incident light.

The use of the photographic process to produce precision copies of an original image that are many times smaller in size. One of its many applications is in microcircuitry.

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) refers to a technology used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, particularly semiconductor devices like microprocessors, memory chips, and image...

A semiconductor made up of two or more elements, in contrast to those composed of a single element such as germanium or silicon. In a III-V semiconductor, for example, one or more elements having...

A material property that is the inverse of its resistance to the flow of electricity.

A partially filled or empty energy band through which electrons can move easily. The material can therefore carry an electric current. The term is usually applied to semiconductors.

A type of laser welding of thin materials using a defocused or low-power carbon dioxide laser beam. The energy is absorbed by the material through conduction and melts the material to produce an edge...

A panel of photoconductive and electroluminescent layers used as either a positive or negative image intensifier, depending on amplitude and phase of its two power supply voltages. The...

Photoconductivity due to the addition of impurities or external causes.

A fiber-coupled photoconductive antenna (FCPA) is a type of optoelectronic device that combines a photoconductive antenna with optical fibers for the purpose of generating or detecting terahertz...

Photoconductivity that may be extended as far as the microwave region because of the absorption of photons by electrons.

In an avalanche photodiode, the gain multiplied by the signal frequency in MHz.

A device used in thin-film deposition; the material to be evaporated is placed in a crucible that is heated inductively by current passing through a coil around it.

A device used to accelerate the electrons in a free-electron laser by supplying electrical energy to the electron beam through a series of transformers.

A photoconductor that demonstrates increased conductivity during its exposure to infrared radiation.

The absorption of a photon raising an electron across the forbidden gap from valence to conduction band of the semiconductor where conductivity is increased and incident radiation may be measured.

In a semiconductor, the state created by the addition of a dopant that provides excess electrons.

In a semiconductor, the state created by the addition of a dopant that creates excess holes.

The production of a positron-electron pair by a photon having energy greater than one mega-electron-volt, whereby some of the photon energy is converted to the rest mass of the pair.

Photoconductive antenna (PCA) is a semiconductor element that generates or detects high-frequency electromagnetic signals. Compact PCAs based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) or indium gallium arsenide...

A device for detecting visual and infrared radiation using a photoconductor as the principle sensing element.

The alteration of electric conductivity produced by the absorption of varying amounts of radiation composed of photons.

A film of material that exhibits varying conductivity based upon its absorption of varying amounts of photon radiation.

The conductivity increase exhibited by some nonmetallic materials, resulting from the free carriers generated when photon energy is absorbed in electronic transitions. The rate at which free carriers...

Material used to integrate photoconductors into electro-optical systems. It should provide low resistance to the flow of charge, avoid recombination of the charge carriers, inject only majority...

A light-sensitive resistor in which resistance decreases with increase in light intensity when illuminated. The device consists of a thin single-crystal or polycrystalline film of compound...

Factor that relates the pulse spread occurring in a graded-index fiber to that of an equivalent step-index fiber having an identical refractive index difference between core and cladding (that is, an...

The thin, transparent film made up of specific substances applied to glass-air surfaces for the purpose of decreasing the amount of reflected light.

Scientific complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (sCMOS) refers to a type of image sensor technology specifically designed for scientific and industrial imaging applications. Unlike traditional...

A semiconductor is a type of material that has electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. In other words, semiconductors have properties that are intermediate between...

A metal, alloy or compound that loses its electrical resistance at temperatures below a certain transition temperature referred to as Tc. High-temperature superconductors occur near 130 K, while...

A semiconductor formed by applying a particular single-crystal layer to the specific insulator.

A system by which consumer products are assigned a bar code that is read by a scanner at a cash register, enabling computerization of pricing and inventory records.

A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to capture digital images. CMOS cameras have become ubiquitous due to their low...

A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used to capture visual information and convert it into electrical signals for...

A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...

A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode is a type of photodetector that consists of metal electrodes on a semiconductor material. Unlike the more common PIN photodiodes, which have a P-type and...

A scientific CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) camera is a type of digital camera specifically designed for scientific imaging applications. It employs CMOS sensor technology, which...

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is a manufacturing process that builds three-dimensional objects layer by layer from a digital model. This technology allows the creation of...

The alteration and reduction of color with the addition of white light. The perceived color shift that occurs as the monochromatic-white combination meets the eye and is interpreted by the brain. The...

An accelerometer is a sensor or transducer that measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, or in simpler terms, it measures acceleration. Accelerometers are widely used in various...

Impurity in a semiconductor or any other electroluminescent device capable of inducing hole conduction and accepting a valence band electron to produce an acceptor energy level.

Stimulating light used for the production of energy through photosynthesis, solar cell or other light senstitive device.