Photonics Dictionary

A coating made up of many layers of material having alternating high and low refractive index. In this way, it is possible to produce coatings with a great variety of properties. These may be...

A thin film of absorbing or nonabsorbing layers in which the absorption of radiation at any point is directly proportional to the electrical field intensity at that point.

An antireflection coating (AR coating) is a thin film or coating applied to optical surfaces, such as lenses or windows, to minimize unwanted reflections and increase the transmission of light...

An optical lens manufactured to control the transmission of light over a specified wavelength range. Low absorption lenses are produced which are anti-reflection coated for UV, VIS and IR wavelengths...

A beamsplitter is an optical device for dividing a beam into two or more separate beams. A simple beamsplitter may be a very thin sheet of glass inserted in the beam at an angle to divert a portion...

A multilayer coating that manifests both a low radiant reflectance and radiant absorption.

A dichroic mirror, also known as a dichroic beamsplitter or interference filter beamsplitter, is an optical device that selectively reflects or transmits light based on its wavelength. Dichroic...

A nonabsorbing, multireflecting device, similar in design to the Fabry-Perot interferometer, that serves as a multilayer, narrow-bandpass filter.

A method of depositing crystalline films one molecular layer at a time, by dipping the substrate into water containing a polymer that forms a single layer of molecular chains on the surface. This...

A photon-counting instrument for use in both space-borne and ground-based photometric and spectroscopic instrumentation. This style of detector is composed of opaque photocathodes for photon to...

A multilayered thin-film device used to modulate transmitted light in integrated photonic circuits.

Plasmon ion-assisted deposition (PIAD) is a technique used in thin-film deposition processes, particularly in the production of optical coatings. This method combines two key processes: plasmon...

Thin-film coating, single or multilayer, that is applied to a substrate to increase its reflectance over a specified range of wavelengths. Metal film, transparent or opaque, is the oldest form of...

A multilayer filter that passes only a narrow band of wavelengths.

A multilayer antireflective thin-film coating, so called because its reflectance rises steeply at wavelengths above and below a narrow band at zero. The v-coat is particularly useful in high-power...

Equipment dependent on the effects of a vacuum. The principal applications in optics are in the coating of lenses and substrates and the fabrication of multilayer interference filters.