Photonics Dictionary

A waveguide that has a core with a lower refractive index than the refractive index of the cladding. This structure can limit the power of the transmitted beam by removing unwanted radiation, for...

A low-power telescope placed at the eyepiece of an optical system to increase overall magnification. Most often used to evaluate image quality.

An amplifying device with a wide tuning range in which an electron gun sends a beam of electrons into a slow-wave structure. The electron beam and the electromagnetic wave move in opposite directions...

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It involves measuring and visualizing how the optical power or intensity is...

The Casimir force is a quantum phenomenon that results in an attractive force between two closely spaced uncharged conductive surfaces. This force arises from the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the...

A CCD camera, or charge-coupled device camera, is a type of digital camera that utilizes a CCD image sensor to capture and record images. CCD cameras are widely used in various applications,...

A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images into electronic signals. It is a key component in digital cameras, camcorders,...

Chip-on-board (COB) lights refer to a type of LED lighting technology where multiple LED chips are directly mounted onto a substrate, typically a printed circuit board (PCB), without the need for...

Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique used in laser physics to amplify ultrashort laser pulses to high energies without causing damage to the amplifying medium. The method was first...

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...

CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision and industrial imaging applications. It enables high-speed data...

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 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...

Laser surgery by means of a low-power laser system using a synthetic sapphire scalpel that transmits the laser light while in direct contact with the tissue.

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light or electromagnetic waves back towards their source with minimal deviation in...

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 diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into a solid gain medium, resulting in the generation of coherent light. This...

Temperature of the blackbody having a spectral power distribution approximately proportional to the test source at all wavelengths; it follows that the two have the same chromaticity.

Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a specialized optical fiber that features two concentric cladding layers surrounding a core. The design of double-clad fibers allows them to be used in various...

An electro-optic deflector is a device that can change the direction of light beams using an electric field. It operates based on the electro-optic effect, which involves the modulation of the...

The utilization of the light produced when electrical energy is directly converted into light within devices used for visual readout displays or as complex logic-circuit elements. With EL lighting,...

An electrophoretic display, often referred to as an electronic paper display or e-paper display, is a type of electronic visual display technology used in electronic devices for the purpose of...

An electrowetting display (EWD) is a type of electronic display technology that utilizes the principles of electrowetting to control the behavior of colored oil droplets on a hydrophobic surface....

Embedded vision refers to the integration of computer vision technologies into various embedded systems, devices, or machines. Computer vision involves teaching machines to interpret and understand...

An event-based image sensor, also known as a dynamic vision sensor (DVS), is a type of digital imaging device designed to capture visual information in a highly efficient and unique way compared to...

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) refers to a specific range of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. EUV radiation has wavelengths between 10 and 124 nanometers, which...

A femtosecond laser is a type of laser that emits ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of femtoseconds, where one femtosecond is equal to 10-15 seconds. These lasers are capable of...

The lowest frequency at which the magnitude of the fiber transfer function decreases to a specified fraction of the zero frequency value. Often, the specified value is one-half the optical power at...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as erbium, ytterbium, or neodymium. Fiber lasers generate coherent light through...

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 fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic communications to transmit and receive data over optical fibers. It integrates both a...

A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the purpose of efficient light transmission. In this configuration, the LED serves...

A low-power telescope with a wide field of view, typically attached to a higher power telescope with a narrower field of view. This enables an observer to locate a celestial object with the...

Any noise with a power spectral density that is the inverse of the signal's frequency and is therefore most significant for low-frequency signals. It can be expressed as 1/f and is therefore also...

Flow cytometry is a powerful technique used in biology and medicine for the quantitative analysis of the physical and chemical characteristics of cells and particles suspended in a fluid. The method...

Fluorescence is a type of luminescence, which is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. Specifically, fluorescence involves the absorption of...

Time rate of flow of energy; the radiant or luminous power in a beam.

A free-electron laser (FEL) is a type of laser that generates coherent, high-intensity electromagnetic radiation by using a beam of accelerated electrons as the lasing medium. Unlike traditional...

The frequency domain is a concept used in signal processing and analysis to represent signals and data in terms of their frequency components. In contrast to the time domain, where signals are...

A Fresnel lens is a type of optical lens that consists of a series of concentric grooves or steps carved into a flat, thin piece of transparent material, typically plastic or glass. This design...

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption or emission of a solid, liquid, or gas sample. It operates based...

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...

Gain-switching is a technique used in lasers to generate short pulses of light by modulating the gain of the laser medium. This method is distinct from Q-switching and mode-locking, two other common...