Photonics Dictionary

A permanent, transparent, and highly transmissive adhesive capable of withstanding extreme temperatures that is applied to optical surfaces for the purpose of cementing, or the sticking together of...

Optical cements and adhesives are specialized materials used in the assembly and bonding of optical components in optical systems. These materials are designed to provide secure and durable bonds...

An intermolecular substance that serves to hold materials together. Two types are used in the optical industry: one, which must be transparent and colorless, to cement lenses together; and a...

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 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...

An adhesive used to hold optical elements to blocking tools. It is usually a thermoplastic substance such as resin, beeswax, pitch or shellac.

Pitch, wax, resin or other cement suitable for holding optical parts to a spindle during grinding and polishing processes.

An instrument used to support optical parts to be cemented, or to be mounted in plaster.

In the optical field, a piece of glass to which a lens or prism is cemented. The unit is ground and polished as a whole to obtain a sharp edge on the finished piece.

An adhesive used for bonding optical elements or for holding devices.

A coherent fiber bundle (CFB), also known as a coherent fiber optic bundle, is an assembly of multiple optical fibers arranged in a specific geometric pattern to maintain the spatial coherence of...

An optical element that measures the phase difference between two components of elliptically polarized light to correct for mechanical or optical displacement.

1. A constituent part. It may consist of two or more parts cemented together, or with near and approximately matching surfaces. 2. The projection of a vector on a certain coordinate axis or along a...

A lens composed of two or more separate elements of optical glass that may or may not be cemented together. The surfaces of the elements are shaped to reduce or eliminate the aberrations inherent in...

Energy loss encountered at connectors in optical fiber transmission systems. The major contributors are mutual core displacement and fiber axis tilt. It is observed in both permanent splices and...

Adhering material used to glue optical components that transmit in the infrared. It is easily dissolved by acetone.

For an optical table, the amount of displacement that occurs when a heavy load is placed or moved on the surface. To measure deflection under static load, a 113-kg (250 lb) weight is placed in the...

Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast microscopy, is an optical imaging technique used in microscopy to enhance the contrast of transparent...

An optical system having two sets of components separated by an air space, while successive lenses in each set are cemented together.

In the tolerancing of optical elements, the displacement of the optical axis from the mechanical axis.

A method of terminating optical fibers by forming a lens directly on the end of the fiber, eliminating the need for precise end-to-end placement or epoxy sealing in fiber connections.

The process whereby a rotating wheel carries grains of an abrasive, suspended in a vehicle, across the surface of the optical glass to be ground. The workpieces are forced downward by pneumatic...

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a compound made up of gallium (Ga) and nitrogen (N). It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material that exhibits unique electrical and optical properties. Gallium nitride is...

Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor commonly used in various electronic and optical applications. Germanium crystals...

A holographic camera, also known as a holographic imaging system or holographic recorder, is a specialized device used to capture 3D holographic images of objects or scenes. Unlike conventional...

A semiconductor platelet laser that emits a coherent image by means of plane optical pumping over the platelet surface, and that uses laser threshold characteristics to produce a pronounced threshold...

In optics, the term image jump refers to a displacement or shift in the apparent position of an image when a change occurs in the optical system. This phenomenon is often observed in certain types of...

Indium phosphide (InP) is a compound semiconductor material composed of indium (In) and phosphorus (P). It belongs to the III-V group of semiconductors, where elements from groups III and V of the...

Integrated photonics is a field of study and technology that involves the integration of optical components, such as lasers, modulators, detectors, and waveguides, on a single chip or substrate. The...

A lateral shearing interferometer is an optical device used in interferometry to measure phase differences between two beams of light. Interferometry is a technique that combines and analyzes...

Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly polarized light signals in various applications, such as optical...

The Lorentz oscillator model is a theoretical model used in physics to describe the response of a charged particle (such as an electron) to an oscillating electric field. It is particularly employed...

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of light. It is named after the physicists Ludwig Mach and Ludwig Zehnder, who...

Plasma-enriched deposition or planar magnetic sputtering that offers increased deposition rates in optical thin-film production. This technology surpasses conventional and RF sputtering.

A wedge in a rangefinder or heightfinder used to displace the image produced by one telescope so that it coincides with that produced by the other telescope, thus affording a measurement of the...

An accurate metal prism or plane parallel plate that is cemented to an optical element and remains with it during a series of grinding or polishing processes. The metal element contains threaded...

Micro-optical coherence tomography (micro-OCT) is an imaging technique that is an adaptation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to achieve high-resolution, cross-sectional imaging of biological...

A micro-ring resonator is a compact optical device that utilizes the resonant behavior of light within a small ring-shaped waveguide structure to selectively enhance or filter certain wavelengths of...

In optical fiber, sharp but microscopic curvatures that create local axial displacements of a few microns and spatial wavelength displacements of a few millimeters. One frequent cause is longitudinal...

A molecular motor refers to a nano-sized device composed of organic molecules or other small-scale components that can convert light energy into mechanical motion at the molecular level. These...

An adhesive used to hold optical components in their mounts. It may be a thermoplastic or chemical-hardening substance.

Multi-axis alignment refers to the process of aligning or adjusting components or systems in multiple spatial dimensions or axes. In various technical and engineering contexts, achieving precise...

Nanopositioning refers to the precise and controlled movement or manipulation of objects or components at the nanometer scale. This technology enables the positioning of objects with extremely high...

Optical character recognition (OCR) is a technology that is used to convert printed or handwritten text into machine-readable text. OCR software and systems are designed to recognize and extract...

An optical clock is a highly precise and advanced timekeeping device that relies on the oscillations of electromagnetic radiation in the optical or ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum....

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique used in medical and scientific fields to capture high-resolution, cross-sectional images of biological tissues. It provides...

One or more optical elements – typically cemented together - in an optical system that are treated as a single group; e.g., a beamsplitter, or a cemented doublet or triplet.