Photonics Dictionary: M

Optical components exceeding 24 in. in diameter. The components are usually glass, acrylic or polystyrene and are used for virtual image systems in simulators and collimators.

An electric arc that is formed in mercury vapor through which an electric current flows. The intensity of the illumination of the arc depends mostly on its design and the conditions under which it...

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other...

An automatic surface-generating process involving the removal of a material from a given surface. Optical milling typically involves the abrasion of glass by a diamond-charged wheel.

A mirror blank refers to the initial piece of material from which a mirror is made. It is typically a flat or slightly curved piece of glass or other substrate that serves as the starting point for...

Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is a technique used in the fabrication of optical fibers. It is a specialized form of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that is employed to produce...

A molded lens is an optical lens manufactured using a molding process, typically involving the shaping of a material, such as glass or plastic, into the desired lens shape. This process involves...

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path difference to create interference between split optical wavefronts. The...