Photonics Dictionary: C

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...

A standard lens interface initially made for 16mm movie cameras and now used primarily on closed-circuit television cameras. It is a 1-in.-diameter, 32-thread-per-inch interface with a...

Name originally given to the sun's infrared radiation by Sir William Herschel in his Philosophical Transactions of 1800.

A forerunner of the modern camera, this instrument had a focusable lens that produced a sharp image on the enclosure opposite the aperture but had no photosensitive material to record it.

An apparatus, designed for use with a camera, that is used to rapidly open the path from lens to film, to maintain the opening throughout exposure and to close the opening in rapid succession. The...

Of or pertaining to the methods of the French philosopher Rene Descartes. Refers to the standard orthogonal X-Y-Z coordinate system.

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...

The darkening of the laser facet of a semiconductor laser diode. It can be prevented by placing the component in a hermetically sealed enclosure.

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...

Chromatic aberration is an optical phenomenon that occurs when different wavelengths (colors) of light are refracted by a lens or optical system, leading to a failure to focus all colors to the same...

The ability of the instrument to separate wavelengths that are close together, numerically equal to the ratio of the shorter wavelength to the difference between two wavelengths that can just be...

A television system that does not broadcast television signals but transmits them over a closed circuit.

A closed-loop system that compensates for thermal blooming by optimizing only one parameter: the amplitude of the phase correction.

In morphological image processing, a series of dilations followed by the same number of erosions.

A plane mirror mounted on a polar axis that lies parallel to the plane of the mirror. When the mirror is rotated once in 48 hours, celestial objects can be made to appear stationary and are...

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...

Cold atoms refer to atoms that have been cooled to extremely low temperatures, typically in the microkelvin (µK) to nanokelvin (nK) range, close to absolute zero (0 Kelvin or -273.15°C). At...

A positive lens located at or close to an intermediate image plane. The collector refracts off-axis light bundles, directing them into the apertures of subsequent optics.

Equipment for testing an observer's color vision. Some tests require the identification or ordering of colored samples. The commercially available examples include: the Ishihara plates, on which...

Also known as real holographic image. The indistinct, highly distorted image produced on the side of the hologram closest to the observer, in addition to the primary image. When the location of the...

The generation, usually by a cathode-ray oscilloscope, of a two-dimensional image having a three-dimensional appearance.

A powerful and flexible machine-learning approach that can be used in machine vision to help solve difficult problems. Inspired by biological processes, multiple layers of neurons process portions of...

A technique used in integrated optics where a groove is cut on a substrate surface and covered by a thin film to facilitate the construction of filters, resonators, beamsplitters and grating couplers...

Custom lapping and polishing services involve specialized processes used to improve the surface finish and dimensional accuracy of components to meet specific requirements or standards. These...