Photonics Dictionary: B

The loss of optical power in an optical fiber because radiation escapes through its bends. The radiation loss caused by fiber bending is proportional to the bend radius.

In a mechanical system, any lost motion between driving and driven elements due to clearance between parts.

A spectrum that originates from molecules and that is composed of bands which, in turn, consist of many closely spaced lines. Band spectra are used to determine nuclear spin and statistics, and...

1. That action occurring when light passes through an optical interface at other than normal incidence, i.e., refraction. 2. The curving of a path of light that passes close by a massive object, due...

A frame taken with a CCD camera over an exposure length of zero seconds with the lens cap on or the shutter closed and no light reaching the sensor. This frame shows the electronic noise in the...

The glossy appearance of an object viewed, because of the binocular combination of two very unlike colors.

A piece of glass polished flat on one side, with a pair of polished faces that form an angle close to 180° on the other side, the dividing edge running down the middle of the plate. It is used...

An enclosure whose walls are coated to absorb completely all radiation striking them.

Blaze height typically refers to a parameter in the context of diffraction gratings, which are optical devices consisting of a series of closely spaced parallel grooves or slits. The blaze height is...

The loss of focus of a camera sensor because of excessive brightness, characterized by the enlargement of spot size and halation on a cathode-ray tube.

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that forms at temperatures close to absolute zero. It is named after Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, who independently predicted the...

A breakout cable, also known as a fan-out cable or breakout assembly, is a type of cable that combines multiple individual cables into a single, larger cable. The breakout cable is designed to...

Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with acoustic phonons (quantized lattice vibrations) in a material, resulting in the...