Photonics Dictionary: W

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wedge photometer

A photometer that uses a wedge, marked to show its reduction of flux density, to make two light sources equal in intensity for comparison of luminous intensities. This is accomplished by the gradual...

Wadsworth mounting

A system used for gratings that consists of a concave mirror, a grating and a plate holder mounted normal to the grating to reduce astigmatism and spherical aberration. The mounting yields a...

wafer

In the context of electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, a wafer refers to a thin, flat disk or substrate made of a semiconducting material, usually crystalline silicon. Wafers serve as the...

wafer tube

An image intensifier tube in which the photocathode and the output of the microchannel plate are proximity-focused on the microchannel plate input and output phosphor screen, respectively.

wavefront reconstruction -> holography

Holography is a technique used to capture and reconstruct three-dimensional images using the principles of interference and diffraction of light. Unlike conventional photography, which records only...

wavelength shifter

A photofluorescent compound that, when used with a scintillating substance, absorbs photons and emits related photons having a greater wavelength. In this way a phototube or photocell may employ the...

wedge ring detector

A diffraction pattern sampling unit composed of a 32-element monolithic silicon photodiode array and a readout unit. The intensity on each detector element can be separately read out by means of a...

wedge

An optical element having plane-inclined surfaces. Usually the faces are inclined toward one another at very small angles. Wedges divert light toward their thicker portions, and may be circular,...

Weissenberg method

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for obtaining high-quality diffraction patterns from single crystals. This...

whispering gallery mode

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) refers to a phenomenon in wave physics, particularly in optics, where waves, such as light or sound waves, are trapped and circulate along the periphery of a curved...

white-light interferometer -> optical profiler

Also known as a white-light interferometer. Measures surface texture and shape from nanometer-scale roughness to millimeter-scale step heights. A standard arrangement includes an illumination source,...

wide-angle distortion

A common aberration in lenses covering large fields of view; it results in images of objects near the edge of the field being compressed in the radial distortion.

wide-angle lens

A wide-angle lens is a type of camera lens that has a shorter focal length than a standard or normal lens, allowing it to capture a broader field of view. Wide-angle lenses are characterized by their...

Wiener experiment

After putting a thick photographic emulsion on a front-faced mirror, and exposing the emulsion to monochromatic incident light normal to the face, Wiener discovered, upon developing the emulsion,...

Winston cone

Specified curved optic intended for maximum collection of light, including off-axis rays, before leaving the exit aperture.

Wollaston prism

A polarizing prism consisting of two calcite prisms cemented such that they deviate the two emerging beams (which are mutually perpendicularly polarized) by nearly equal amounts in opposite...

Photonics DictionaryW

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