A material that changes color as it is heated or cooled.

A printing process of electrostatic electrophotography that uses a photoconductive insulating medium, in conjunction with...

A test similar to the Knoop hardness test, but used for fractured material. The indenter is a square-based pyramid-shaped...

On a display monitor, a small, mobile rectangle, cross-hair or pointer that locates a feature in an image that is the object...

A bulk crystalline optic which permits the propagation of light through a volume of index altered material. The variation in...

A quadrivalent semiconductor material, with electrons as the majority charge carriers, that is formed by doping with donor...

The number of separate images exposed by a cine camera in a second or the number illuminated by a cine projector in a...

A term applied to the recording of video images by means of magnetic tape or disc, so that the image's record can be played...

Infrared optics refer to optical components and systems designed to manipulate and control infrared (IR) light, which lies...

The distortion created because the different frequencies of a signal have different propagation velocities through a medium.

1. Calculated distance between two exactly opposed points on a beam at a chosen fraction of peak power (typically 1/e2). 2....

The light flash, produced in flash photolysis, that is triggered within a second discharge tube by the third electrode. It...

A projector used to project transparencies. A horizontal 8 x 10-in. stage for writing or laying down preformed...

The process of determining, with the aid of plane-polarized light, the stress distribution in materials under complex...

The state of a carrier signal that corresponds to maximum picture brightness in a television system.

A device used to evaluate the quality of fiber optic splices made in the field by injecting light into the cladding of the...

Excimer laser coronary angioplasty (ELCA) refers to a medical procedure used in the treatment of coronary artery disease....

A double-surfaced catadioptric spherical mirror whose spherical first surface consists of a negative meniscus (concave) lens...

The degree to which a pair of fine lines can be aligned to each other. A normal observer will demonstrate an accuracy of 10...

A technique for polishing silicon in which an alkaline suspension containing silicon dioxide particles creates a soft layer...

A device using a parametric amplifier inside a resonant optical cavity to generate a frequency-tunable coherent beam of...

A group of energy levels to which ions in the ground state are initially excited when pumping radiation is applied to a...

Topological photonics is a branch of physics and optics that explores the application of topological concepts to the...

An instrument used to measure the duration of fluorescence emanating from a biological sample to monitor and evaluate its...

Calculated at a given point in a medium as the instantaneous pressure at that point in the presence of a sound wave, minus...

A wave that is polarized elliptically or circularly polarized and in which the electric field vector — observed while...

Laser ablation is a process that involves the removal or erosion of material from a target surface using laser energy. This...

In integrated circuits, a pathway, hole, or other passage through the substrate.

Compilation of the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories that contains values of the line parameters of the 1-0 bands of...

The conversion of an internal latent image into a surface latent image through exposure to infrared radiation. The converse...

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of...

A film of material that exhibits varying conductivity based upon its absorption of varying amounts of photon radiation.

A common technique in microscopy, oblique illumination is one in which the object is illuminated by a light source that is...

A binary semiconductor compound used as a substrate or active layer for diode lasers.

A Michelson-type interference microscope used to produce interference patterns of reflective specimens through the...

A test for spherical aberration, coma or astigmatism in which incident rays from a point source are isolated by small holes...

Instantaneous field of view (iFOV) is a term commonly used in the context of remote sensing, imaging systems, and optical...

Correction of an optical system at four separate wavelengths. This correction, longitudinal and lateral, is possible with...

The dip or gap in the profile of a laser beam's line width when it is both homogeneously and inhomogeneously broadened. When...

The formula that indicates the total radiation at all wavelengths from a perfect blackbody. W Total = 5.67 x 10-12 T 4(W/cm2)

A fundamental law of quantum theory which states that the discrete quanta of energy transfers associated with...

The effect, present in particular phosphors, that is defined as a transformation in the dielectric constant of a material...

The spectrographic analysis of matter that is in a cooled state. Generally, a mechanical refrigerator is used to lower the...

A window made of glass containing a high percentage of lead or other dense material known to absorb x-rays readily.

A parallel plate of glass in such a position that the refracted and reflected rays of incident parallel light are mutually...

An instrument used to record the emittance or reflectance of an object by scanning with discrete spectral resolution over a...

The distortion of an object's true image as the result of abnormal atmospheric disturbances along the path traveled by the...

An instrument used to measure the light from a scene to be photographed and to indicate the camera lens and shutter settings...

The process whereby a rotating wheel carries grains of an abrasive, suspended in a vehicle, across the surface of the...

A high-speed motion camera, also known as a high-speed camera or slow-motion camera, is a specialized imaging device...

A controlled random search process, such as generalized simulated annealing, that has been incorporated into many optical...

Simulation of atmospheric turbulence for laboratory experimentation purposes, achieved by creating an unstable vertical...

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional environment or experience that can be...

A form of prism invented by H.W. Dove. It resembles half of a common right-angle prism in which a ray entering parallel to...

An optical element having plane-inclined surfaces. Usually the faces are inclined toward one another at very small angles....

The term "excimer," strictly used, refers to excited species made by combination of two identical moieties, atoms...

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that measures changes in hemoglobin...

A prism invented by William Nicol in 1828 that is made of calcite, the end faces of which are ground to an angle of 68°...

A mirror coated to reflect cold (white) light while transmitting hot (infrared) energy.

A solid-state laser using yttrium aluminum garnet as the matrix material, doped with neodymium (Nd:YAG).

A phenomenon that occurs in WDM and DWDM systems when three closely spaced signal wavelengths near the zero-dispersion...

Process of synthesizing long molecular chain materials (polymers) by reaction of many small molecules (usually thousands)...

Laser cavity bounded by a plane mirror and a concave spherical mirror with the plane mirror located at the center of...

An ocular having two planoconvex lenses that are formed from similar glass and that are separated by a space equal to half...

An imaging system that uses a mosaic of tiny light-sensitive semiconductors (phototransistors) to produce individual outputs...

State typically studied in liquid crystals in which the dielectric coefficient parallel to the director is less than the...

In computer graphics, intersection of a plane with a three-dimensional object to create a sectional view.

A type of optical fiber in which a silica core is surrounded by a hard polymer or similar material much stronger than the...

A scale on an optical instrument that indicates the condition of focus. May indicate the distance to the object or diopter...

A television camera tube in which a low-velocity electron beam scans a photoactive mosaic that has been created by an...

An imperfection in optical glass consisting of a distinct streak of transparent material having a slightly different...

A piece of glass, quartz or other transparent material formed roughly by molding or cutting into the approximate shape and...

A computer-generated kinoform used for data processing because of its use of incoherent light and its wide field of view,...

A laser crystal, also known as an active medium or gain medium, is a solid-state material used in the construction of...

A mirror blank refers to the initial piece of material from which a mirror is made. It is typically a flat or slightly...

In positioning, the friction that prevents immediate motion when force is first applied to a body or surface at rest.

A diffraction grating is an optical component consisting of a surface with a periodic structure of equally spaced, parallel...

The circuit that regulates an electron beam's deflection in a cathode-ray tube.

Optical cements and adhesives are specialized materials used in the assembly and bonding of optical components in optical...

A solid-state laser is a type of laser that uses a solid gain medium (as opposed to a liquid or gas) to produce coherent...

A condenser that forms a hollow cone-shaped beam of light with its focal point in the plane of the specimen. If it is used...

Interruption in the normal flow of a plasma or fluid characterized by sharp rises in velocity, temperature and pressure. As...

The process of transferring collected energy from solar radiation into a heat-absorbing medium (e.g., an insulated tank of...

A type of fiber optic sensor that detects alteration in position, distance, pressure, liquid level or temperature by...

An optical system that rapidly alternates two similar pictures or scenes to permit the detection of small dissimilarities...

The three-dimensional interference pattern of fringes that is recorded on a holographic plate to facilitate the study of a...

A laser having a Q-switching method that allows separate parallel volumes of the lasing material to act independently of...

The rainbow exhibition of colors, usually caused by interference of light of different wavelengths reflected from...

A photographic camera and processing system used to form a usable record of the subject in a short time, usually a few...

A phase reflection scanner that eliminates the need for a complex translation device while maintaining a high-energy-density...

A type of motion-picture camera in which single frames are photographed either automatically at a predetermined rate (as...

A test used to measure the degree of fading of different colored materials, especially those involving organic dyes, which...

The stationary state of an ion, atom or molecule, above the ground state that is produced by the interaction with the...

A microscope eyepiece designed for use with apochromatic objectives. Since apochromatic objectives are undercorrected for...

The interaction between electrical and mechanical stress-strain factors in a material. When piezoelectric crystal is...

A manufacturing process used to construct substrates for large optical components. Used with IR materials, planform bonding...

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot onboard. UAVs are remotely...

A form of photometric measurement, often used with light sources that are transparent or fluctuating, in which a...

Hydrophilic is a term used to describe substances or materials that have an affinity for water. The word hydrophilic comes...

A technique used to generate a phase shift between reference and sample light beams. The phase shift can be performed...

A telescope objective with excellent spherochromatic correction, consisting of a meniscus crown and a meniscus flint, both...

Blaze height typically refers to a parameter in the context of diffraction gratings, which are optical devices consisting of...

A set of international standards by which a single telecommunications channel is used to transmit voice and data...

An electrically excited laser having carbon monoxide as the lasing material and in which lasing occurs in a partial...

An accurately produced hole of any size and shape that is used as a masking device in an optical system. Pinhole apertures...

A spectroradiometer is a device used to measure the intensity of light at different wavelengths across the electromagnetic...

A technique used to create an achromatic phase shift based on the principle of geometric phase. The phase shift is...

A technique for improving the structure density of thin-film coatings by bombarding the growing film with accelerated ions...

Family of deterministic models of plant canopy reflectance that provides deterministic formulation for each necessary...

A laser having a rare-earth chelate within a plastic host as the lasing material. The chelate laser is easily pumped and has...

An alternate term for lateral chromatic aberration. See chromatic aberration.

A television format with enhanced vertical resolution (400 lines as compared with the standard 330) that, unlike...

Laser texturing is a manufacturing process that involves using a laser beam to selectively modify the surface of a material,...

A well controlled thin films technique for growing films with good crystal structure in ultra high vacuum environments at...

Area in which laser operation occurs and therefore safety requirements are met and regulations are implemented. Lasers...

A specific type of hologram that will transmit a pure plane wave when the hologram is illuminated by the type of wave it is...

A technique used in integrated optics where a groove is cut on a substrate surface and covered by a thin film to facilitate...

A form of dispersing prism, often used in monochromators, that consists of a common right-angle prism with a 30°...

A dichroic mirror, also known as a dichroic beamsplitter or interference filter beamsplitter, is an optical device that...

A device for the internal inspection of hard-to-get-at mechanical parts, such as rifle barrels, sewer pipes, oil wells, or...

A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a type of electronic image sensor used in various imaging devices, including digital...

Fiber optic cable bearing many fibers independently sheathed and capable of carrying unrelated signals. They often surround...

An optical interference technique widely utilized as a method of nondestructive testing when determining the ray deflection...

In the context of optical materials, the term "impurity level" refers to the presence of foreign atoms or molecules within...

A computing paradigm that attempts to process information in a manner similar to that of the brain; it differs from...

An absorption peak refers to a sharp increase or spike in the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at a particular...

An instrument that photographs the spectra of an extraterrestrial object.

A flat cylindrical device generally used to polish terminated ends in fiber optic connections.

A system of mirrors that can be used to direct light from a single laser source into any one of a number of separate optical...

A multiple-beam interferometer, usually consisting of two flat plates, with high reflective ability. The plates are set...

When light is transmitted through matter, part of the light is scattered in random directions. A small part of the scattered...

Laser sintering is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that involves using a laser to selectively fuse...

Harmonic generation refers to a nonlinear optical process in which incoming photons interact with a material and produce new...

A visible laser beam generated coaxially with an infrared or other invisible laser beam to aid in its positioning.

A liquid crystal display using the material in its supertwisted nematic phase; the birefringence of the liquid crystal...

A type of laser welding of thin materials using a defocused or low-power carbon dioxide laser beam. The energy is absorbed...

A solution containing colloidal silica particles.

An optical filter is a device that selectively transmits or blocks specific wavelengths, or colors, of light. Optical...

Device in which the various circuit elements are fabricated in different substrate materials and then appropriately joined...

A device consisting of an airtight quartz tube that holds the material to be analyzed. When a high-frequency electrostatic...

A device used to create a light output that exceeds light input, the energy being provided by an electric field. It consists...

An early form of photographic media consisting of glass plates coated with an emulsion.

A photorefractive material used in image processing, holography and optical switching.

The difference between the energy of an atom in its ground state and that of the same atom in its excited (quantum) state.

The use of a reflective device, which can be fashioned from a variety of materials including gases, solids, dyes, aerosols,...

An electron-gun system is an assembly used to generate and control a focused beam of electrons. Electron guns find...

A CMOS image sensor, short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor, is a type of semiconductor device used...

A plate of electro-optical material that serves to rotate the plane of polarization of a light beam.

Noise generated by the random variations in the number and velocity of the electrons from an emitter.

A photoconductor that demonstrates increased conductivity during its exposure to infrared radiation.

An electron beam gun in which plasma that is generated within a low-voltage hollow-cathode discharge serves as the source of...

The formation of a block by attaching optical elements to a plate with a ring of pitch or other thermoplastic material.

Laser marking is a process in which a laser beam is used to mark or engrave a surface by altering its properties or...

The circle of confusion is a defocused or aberrated image of a point. Focus is generally set where the diameter of this...

Photographic recording of rapid events at a rate exceeding 106 frames per second.

A lens system made up of two sets of similar lenses, each of which compensates for many of the aberrations produced by the...

The size of the field of view in the object space of an optical system as differentiated from that in the image space...

A group of related lines that represent transitions between two spectroscopic terms, each of which may be complex. Also in...

A frequency comb is a precise and regular series of equally spaced spectral lines, or frequencies, that are generated with...

A tough, durable, heat- and cold-resistant optical quality plastic used in injection-molded items such as streetlight...

Descriptive of an optical fiber having a core refractive index that decreases almost parabolically and radially outward...

Acronym for profile resolution obtained by excitation. In its simplest form, probe involves the overlap of two...

The underexposed collodion that is present on a glass negative as a positive when backed with material.

A system of sensors and related instrumentation that allows a navigable object (usually a missile) to locate its destination...

The simultaneous exposure of two holographic plates with emulsions facing the object. After deformation, a second pair of...

An experimental research technique by which absorbed or unabsorbed radiation is analyzed in order to characterize and...

A simple form of astronomical telescope that uses a fixed objective and a focusable eyepiece. The objective forms an...

A retroreflector is an optical device or structure that reflects incident light or electromagnetic waves back to their...

Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter...

Fluorescence is a type of luminescence, which is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other...

Voltage that produces current flow in the direction of lesser resistance to the steady-state direct current, i.e., from the...

Terahertz (THz) refers to a unit of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, denoting waves with frequencies between 0.1...

Radiation emitted from vibrating charged particles. A combination of oscillating electrical and magnetic fields that...

A device used to count objects that pass a given point by allowing each object to obstruct a beam of light falling on a...

The use of photoelectric sensors to detect and measure the intensity of a light source. This application, as compared to...

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It...

A reflection grating is an optical component that consists of a series of closely spaced, parallel reflecting surfaces or...

1. A defect inherent in a multiple-axis positioning system whereby an adjustment of one axis causes an undesired change in...

Radiation in which every ray from any given object point can be considered to be parallel to every other. This is never...

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path...

In digital data transmission, the separation of the two binary states into output at two frequencies.

A parabolic, elliptical, hyperbolic or circular section created when a solid cone is intersected by a plane.

A wedge-shaped piece of quartz typically found in a polarimeter to monitor and rotate the plane of polarization of plane...

The theory established by Christian J. Doppler in 1842 that states that the rate of change in distance between a perceiver...

A standard for fiber optic data transmission systems being developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and...

An image that appears when a hologram is illuminated by a suitable light source, generally a laser beam.

A material, such as gold black and carbon black, that is used as a solar absorber because of its high absorptance and low...

Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) is a display technology that combines liquid crystal materials with silicon-based...

In holography, the wave of light that illuminates the object to be recorded, which diffracts it to the recording medium,...

A device used to investigate the dichroism of crystals.

The distance between the center of the two concentric circles of an optical fiber that designate the diameter of the...

A crystal defect that is a combination of a vacancy and an interstitial created by the removal of an ion from a lattice and...

An aspheric mirror is an optical mirror surface that deviates from the shape of a perfect sphere, having a non-spherical...

A rigid or flexible, concentrated assembly of glass or plastic fibers used to transmit optical images or light. See aligned...

A type of optical microscope that allows the specimen being viewed to be irradiated by ultraviolet, violet and occasionally...

A system in which the electrical signal embedded within an audio input signal is converted to a modulated light pattern and...

A material used as a protective layer on an aluminized or silvered mirror. It is evaporated on the mirror as a thin layer,...

Volumetric imaging refers to the capture, visualization, and analysis of three-dimensional (3D) information from a volume of...

A function that quantifies the performance degradation of coherent communications systems, imaging systems and all systems...

A planar photocathode and a planar phosphor screen mounted in a close-spaced parallel configuration in an evacuated...

An atomic force microscope (AFM) is a high-resolution imaging and measurement instrument used in nanotechnology, materials...

Also known as gatling gun laser. A system that has an array of lasers sharing a common central axis on a rotating Fabry...

A dye laser cell configuration in which the dye flows in the direction of the axis of the laser, yielding symmetrical energy...

The electrical power used to stimulate any light source. Power supplies may be step-up or step-down transformers; rectifiers...

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a compound made up of gallium (Ga) and nitrogen (N). It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material...

Extremely small organic and inorganic systems of molecules within a substance. In general, systems are colloidal size in...

A power loss caused by transverse or lateral deviation from optimum alignment of source to optical waveguide, waveguide to...

Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effects of...

A contraction of binary digit; the fundamental unit of digital computing, a bit is either 1 or 0, expressing the binary...

A dark band that may appear in the field of crossed Nicol prisms with a powerful source such as the sun because the light is...

Term for service offered by a vendor who leases a particular wavelength to a customer through DWDM technology. Lambda...

A glow discharge lamp consisting of a cold cathode and a mixture of inert gases. The intensity of illumination varies with...

Histochemical staining is a laboratory technique used in biology and medicine to visualize specific chemical components...

Description of a material, such as a water-soluble salt, that will continue absorbing moisture from the surrounding...

An optical experiment carried out conclusively in 1887 that demonstrated that the ether, a hypothetical medium postulated by...

A cryogenically cooled component incorporated into the Dewar of an infrared detector assembly to maintain the sensing...

Silicon carbide (SiC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electric current is...

Interferometric measurement of the interference pattern recorded when a complex object is illuminated by two laser pulses...

Magneto-optics refers to the study and manipulation of the interaction between magnetic fields and light (electromagnetic...

A camera designed to form a continuous record of an expansive section of the horizon. The typical panoramic camera is...

Any material that derives its energy from chemically or electrically induced reactions; isotope or radium excitation is used...

The laser damage threshold refers to the maximum level of laser intensity that a material can withstand without experiencing...

A feature of some imaging devices, such as digital cameras, that allows them to compensate for different lighting conditions...

Fresnel reflection refers to the reflection of light at the interface between two different media with different refractive...

A device used in thin-film deposition; the material to be evaporated is placed in a crucible that is heated inductively by...

An alien, electrically charged atomic system in a solid; an ion substituted for the constituent atom or ion in a crystal...

An infrared lens is an optical component specifically designed and optimized for transmitting, focusing, or manipulating...

A light-tight box that receives light from an object or scene and focuses it to form an image on a light-sensitive material...

Cold atoms refer to atoms that have been cooled to extremely low temperatures, typically in the microkelvin (µK) to...

Functional materials refer to materials that possess specific properties or functionalities that make them suitable for...

A computer-generated routine for achieving true-temperature readings in thermal infrared imaging systems.

A lens composed of two or more separate elements of optical glass that may or may not be cemented together. The surfaces of...

An optical wedge in which transmittance or density is a function of the location of the wedge, relative to a specific...

A high-brightness, short-duration source in which low-pressure gas initiates the discharge to vaporize material from the...

The central hole running the full length of a laser capillary tube, in which electrical discharge and laser action take...

A device that is designed to modulate a beam of light, usually from a laser source, by acting upon the beam directly. The...

An astronomical body that emits radiation concentrated by a strong magnetic field into two beams that rotate, giving a...

Three-photon microscopy is an advanced imaging technique that belongs to the family of multi-photon microscopy methods. It...

Solid-state laser geometry in which the standard rod is replaced by a slab of laser material. Often called...

A double-plate device used to transmit polarized light and form interference fringes of the light, thus indicating its...

A spectrograph in which the refracted beam returns almost along the path traveled by the incident beam, and is brought to a...

A self-interference effect that generates random patterns; secondary speckle pattern (SSP) typically occurs in diffuse...

A measure of the dispersive properties of a glass. The relative dispersion is defined as: where C, D, and F refer to the...

The combination of two waves having the same frequency and amplitude and traveling in opposite directions. Standing waves...

Acronym for self-aligned polysilicon interconnect N-channel. A metal-gate process that uses aluminum for the metal-oxide...

One of the types of change in the energy levels of molecules or atoms in a laser that can result in lasing action. Because...

Medical diagnostic (x-ray) imaging using laser printers to produce high-resolution digital hard copy instead of film exposed...

A technique based on the principles of laser trapping and used to manipulate the position of small particles by gradually...

The disordered, glassy solid state of a substance, as distinguished from the highly ordered crystalline solid state....

Laser optics refers to a broad category of optical components and systems designed for manipulating and controlling laser...

An image intensifier, also known as an image intensification tube or image intensification device, is a specialized...

The relationship between different wavelengths of light generated by a source, which may affect the spectral distribution of...

A camera tube similar in design to the iconoscope. However, the image formed in the image iconoscope is projected on a...

An EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge-coupled device) camera is a type of scientific camera specifically designed for...

An optical fiber in which ions of a rare-earth element, such as neodymium, erbium or holmium, have been incorporated into...

An endoscope is a medical device used for visualizing and examining the interior of hollow organs, body cavities, or...

A laser that uses a substance in the liquid state, such as an organic dye, as the active lasing medium.

The angular field of view that is seen by the eyes when fixed on a point straight ahead. The normal binocular visual field...

A hologram formed by the recording of a plane object situated in the focal plane of a lens so that each object gives rise to...

Time rate of flow of energy; the radiant or luminous power in a beam.

Temperature of the blackbody having chromaticity nearest to that of the test source on a specified chromaticity diagram.

A desklike apparatus with an opal glass surface illuminated from beneath by fluorescent tubes. It is equipped with roll...

A device that accumulates and stores electrical energy to introduce capacitance into a circuit. Basically, it is composed of...

The purest gas source of antimony, which is used in the manufacture of compound semiconductors for IR sensors and...

A method used to generate graphics within a computer system. Rather than dots or lines, fractal graphics work with...

A natural or mechanical system adversely affected by the influence of laser radiation. During laser damage the common effect...

Pertaining to or as a function of wavelength. Spectral quantities are evaluated at a single wavelength.

Metal used in components of the crystalline semiconductor alloys indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), indium gallium arsenide...

A transparent powdered solid immersed in a liquid or plastic of similar refractive index but widely different dispersion;...

An early type of nonvacuum photocell consisting of a layer of copper oxide on a metallic substrate, with a thin transparent...

1. A framelike structure that serves to restrict the viewing area of the screen when placed before a television picture...

Spectra can be conveniently recorded on photographic film or plates. The portions that are occupied by regions of the...

A type of compensator for use with a microscope and consisting of a quarter-wave plate in a fixed position and a rotatable...

In computer graphics, the coordinated two-dimensional or three-dimensional area of increased resolution where graphics...

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) refers to a phenomenon in wave physics, particularly in optics, where waves, such as light or...

1. A lens situated at or near the plane of an internal image to project the aperture of a previous objective or erector upon...

A satellite-borne remote sensing device capable of transmitting images at 10 and 20 m resolution from an altitude of 830 km,...

A lens used in the optical testing of an aspheric surface. It converts a spherical wavefront into one that precisely matches...

The growth of particular grain fragments in a metal or alloy, at the expense of others, that occurs when the metal or alloy...

Also called proximity focus image intensifier. A compact image intensifier that utilizes a microchannel plate...

A type of liquid-crystal display in which each display element contains an active component, such as a thin-film transistor,...

The elimination of magnetic fields from within a material as that material makes the transition from the normal to...

A biomarker, short for biological marker, refers to a measurable and quantifiable indicator of a biological condition,...

A gas laser equipped with Brewster windows and concave mirrors (having unlike reflective properties) at each end of the tube...

An optical fiber that can be used to amplify an optical input. Erbium rare earth ions are added to the fiber core material...

A circuit incorporated into counter systems that records only pulses that have amplitudes between two preselected limits.

A sensing or image-forming detector that serves to convert infrared rays into visible signals for communication purposes....

An intermolecular substance that serves to hold materials together. Two types are used in the optical industry: one, which...

The series of images formed when periodic objects are exposed to collimated monochromatic radiation and that result from...

Spectroscopy used to study the concentration, diffusion and Brownian motion of small particles suspended in a fluid by...

A type of color-generating cathode-ray tube that uses a shadow mask, a thin perforated electrode, located close to the...

The angle at which a given mode propagates down an optical fiber.

Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often...

Radiation similar in origin to spontaneous emission but determined by the presence of other radiation having the same...

Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level....

A particular type of phototube having increased sensitivity as a result of the glow initiated by light incident to the...

The rule stating that positive uniaxial crystals have greater absorption with respect to the extraordinary component of...

In a sequence of laser pulse emissions, the intitial pulse that often helps initiate a reaction at the target surface,...

First stated by Abbe, condition states that the ratio of input and output angles, from object point to image point, for two...

A concave surface that has too much negative power; i.e., its radius of curvature is too short. This condition can be...

A camera system used for microphotography that has a structure, such as a cylinder or surveyor belt, to rotate the documents...

The value of the expanse of b-particles in an absorber, evaluated by visual examination of breaks in the absorption curve.

A specialized form of diffraction grating consisting of assembled glass plates of equal thickness that resemble a flight of...

In optics, a collapsible structure situated between the lens and film of a camera to allow variation of the distance between...

A Darlington current amplifier consisting of two separate transistors, of which a phototransistor is the input device.

A plasma produced by the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a material surface. Production of ionized particle with...

A device that serves to emit light of the same wavelength as the input light, only with an increase in intensity. It may be...

Technique for measuring the volume bulk of materials as they move along a conveyor with an accuracy of better than 1...

A nonhomogeneity of index in flat glass that is in the form of an approximately plane layer.

In the dye laser, the molecule that takes out energy from the triplet state during collisions between the dye and quencher...

The occurrence of very large rotations in transparent materials at weak magnetic fields as predicted in the classical...

Polymers are large molecules composed of repeating structural units called monomers. These monomers are chemically bonded...

An optogenetic technique that embeds genetically-engineered proteins to the heart to aid in terminating arrhythmias. After...

The maximum distance at which the eye can perceive and evaluate objects.

In a remote sensing system, nadir refers to the point on the ground located vertically below the center of the system. In...

Phototherapy is a medical treatment that involves the use of light to treat various conditions, particularly those related...

A type of camera that incorporates a tiny mirror that oscillates in accordance with incoming signals. An illuminated slit is...

The perpendicular orientation of the molecular axes of the nematic molecules in a nematic crystal, relative to the electrode...

A source that attempts to create the characteristics of an ideal blackbody. It consists of a cavity, generally spherical,...

Term for the brightness of an oscilloscope trace.

The laser output refers to the generated and emitted light produced by a laser system. This output is characterized by...

The internal transmittance per unit thickness of a nondiffusing material.

A photographic enlarger with a fixed negative plane and a fixed paper plane, often using a roll of paper that is advanced...

In optics, the Pockels effect refers to the phenomenon where the refractive index of a material changes in response to an...

The interferometric analysis of a complex object by utilizing the three-dimensional hologram. By causing a laser beam to...

A lens made up of a dielectric material that is capable of influencing radio waves much in the same way an optical lens...

A concave mirror that has the form of a paraboloid of revolution. The paraboloidal mirror may have only a portion of a...

A small xenon-filled tube with metal electrodes fused into the ends. The gas flashes brilliantly when a condenser is...

A device to modulate spatially a collimated coherent beam of light with input data in optical data processing. It uses a...

Equipment for testing an observer's color vision. Some tests require the identification or ordering of colored samples. The...

An electrode used to release photoelectric emission when irradiated, making it then the irradiated negative electrode of a...

A method of applying antireflection coatings to optics that avoids the elevated temperatures normally used. A cold coating...

A method of projecting integrated circuit patterns on a silicon wafer using x-ray wavelengths focused through a special mask.

Nanophotonics is a branch of science and technology that explores the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, typically at...

Pyramid error in optics refers to an aberration in the shape of an optical surface, particularly in the context of mirrors....

1. Synonymous with radioactivity. The intensity of a radioactive source illustrated as the number of atoms disintegrating in...

The radiation emitted in semiconductors when electrons in the conduction band recombine with holes in the valence band. If...

A gas laser in which the energy-state transitions between vibrational and rotational states of CO2 molecules give emission...

The measurement of surface temperature by a thermograph that forms a pattern of the heat radiated by the surface on a...

A material that surrounds a fiber optic cable's buffer tubes to prevent moisture from entering if the jacket is breached.

A phage, short for bacteriophage, is a type of virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. Phages are composed of...

In optical character recognition, the method of dividing a string of characters into separate, distinct characters.

A spectrograph having glass as its refracting component and used in cases where speed and high dispersion are not required....

In biology, particularly genetics and evolutionary biology, the phenotype refers to the observable characteristics or traits...

Production of a repeated image of a transmitted beam through a diffractive optical element such as a holographic card or...

A technique for detecting free radicals by their electronic spectra. The material to be studied is placed in a...

A method of resampling in which a 16-pixel neighborhood around a given pixel from the original image is used to calculate...

An electronic flash tube capable of repeated operation at hundreds or thousands of flashes per second for long periods.

A method of growing single crystals in which atoms and molecules from gaseous organic compounds interact and form a layer on...

Plasma-enriched deposition or planar magnetic sputtering that offers increased deposition rates in optical thin-film...

Direct conversion of a photon from one wavelength to a lower energy photon of another wavelength(s) due to inelastic...

A dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) refers to a type of optical fiber designed to minimize the effects of chromatic dispersion,...

The optically pumped, solid-state laser that uses sapphire as the host lattice and chromium as the active ion. The emission...

Although low in sensitivity (approximately 10-7 m for helium-neon lasers), this holographic technique permits quantitative...

Spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) is a technique that extends traditional Raman spectroscopy by incorporating...

Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy technique that enhances the contrast of transparent and colorless...

Voltage that produces current flow in the direction of greater resistance to the steady-state direct current; i.e., from the...

A type of stereoscopic photography in which the distance between the two view points is greater than the average...

Optical design and engineering services involve the development, customization, and optimization of optical systems and...

The degree to which a predetermined or previous setting of a positioning device can be duplicated by observance of the...

A holographic plate coated by photopolymeric mixtures that are composed of one or more monomers and a photoredox catalyst...

A nitrogen vacancy (NV) refers to a specific type of defect or impurity in a crystal lattice where a nitrogen atom replaces...

The steady state of temperature exhibited by a material that has absorbed and emitted radiation equally.

Holographic tomography is an advanced imaging technique that combines holography and tomography to provide three-dimensional...

A metal coil or coils wrapped around the outside of the neck of a cathode-ray tube. Current passing through the coils...

A cell filled with a transparent material that, when placed in a strong electrical field, exhibits double refraction. Since...

Carrier injection refers to the process of introducing charge carriers (either electrons or holes) into a semiconductor...

Power modulation refers to the intentional variation of power levels in a signal, often in the context of electronic...

The term delta error (delta-E) generally refers to the difference or change in error between two values or states. The word...

A device designed to convert linear change in the light state at input to log data at output.

A zone plate in which the zones are alternately transparent and opaque to specific radiation, and coarse enough so that no...

Colorless crystals used in photoelectric cells and for photosensitive material in cathodes.

A dielectric ceramic material used in laser capillary tubes because of its high electrical resistivity and high thermal...

A portable instrument that uses a four-sided reflecting prism or set of mirrors to create a duplicate image of an object on...

Hyperspectral resolution refers to the level of detail or granularity in the spectral information captured by a...

The fluctuation in apparent illumination that has a rate comparable to the reciprocal of the period of persistence in vision.

Operates with light collectively emitted by the recombination of free electrons and ions in the plasma state.

A two-stage illuminating system for a microscope in which the source is imaged in the aperture of the substage condenser by...

In laser pumping, parasitic absorption that occurs at certain wavelengths, decreasing pump efficiency and gain.

An optical gate typically refers to a device or system that controls the transmission of light, allowing it to pass through...

Ferroelectric materials are a type of dielectric materials that exhibit spontaneous electric polarization, meaning they...

The technique by which an analog image is converted by any of several means into a finite array of points, each represented...

The development of a transverse electric field in a solid material when it carries an electric current and is placed in a...

Freeform mirrors refer to reflective optical components that deviate from traditional symmetric or rotationally symmetric...

An oil required by oil-immersion objectives that is applied between the exterior of the objective lens and a cover glass or...

The unwanted and unpredictable fluctuations that distort a received signal and hence tend to obscure the desired message....

A device that measures the intensity of photochemically active radiation, particularly from the sun. One form of this...

A laser skin-resurfacing method that creates microscopic thermal wounds referred to as microscopic treatment zones (MTZs),...

The sine of the vertex angle of the largest cone of meridional rays that can enter or leave an optical system or element,...

A convention that defines specific dimensions of an optical system, such as the image distance or radius of curvature of a...

A direct method of measuring refractive index that works best with flat-surfaced samples (i.e., those that are not dependent...

A device, such as a thermionic or crystal diode, that is introduced into the vision channel of a television receiver to...

An event-based image sensor, also known as a dynamic vision sensor (DVS), is a type of digital imaging device designed to...

A camera with two taking lenses and synchronized shutters. Two images are recorded simultaneously on separate frames,...

The direct cladding used for fused silica cores to create large numerical aperture fibers and used as overcoats to...

Topology is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the properties of space that are preserved under continuous...

With respect to color photography, the measurement of the way the color film modulates the radiant flux in the optical...

The difference in base up or down prism power at corresponding points located on the two lenses of a pair of spectacles.

A spectrophotometer designed for use in the 200- to 380-nm range of the electromagnetic spectrum and equipped with a...

A closely spaced series of well-known chemicals having a refractive index lying between 1.33 for water and 1.95 for a...

Vision by means of retinal rods; vision of the dark-adapted eye. In scotopic vision, the level of luminance is so low that...

A microscope in which laser light is delivered through single-mode fibers that replace the pinhole usually used in confocal...

Gamma ray radiation released when matter and antimatter, such as electron and positron, unite and eliminate each other,...

A device used to take turbidimetric or nephelometric measurements by considering the contrast between a constant brightness...

An instrument capable of precise measurements of the Earth's gravity. This permits the detection of small changes in local...

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of optical filter that is inscribed or "written" into the core of an optical fiber. It...

An optical element located at an image plane, containing a pattern that assists in pointing an instrument or measuring...

The addition to the information signal in communications of redundant bits that enable the originally encoded message to be...

An array of lines in the infrared region of the emission spectrum of atomic hydrogen. Their wave numbers are expressed by...

An accelerometer is a sensor or transducer that measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, or in simpler terms,...

A lens with an axial thickness adequate to make it producible.

The rate at which data can be read from a CD-ROM.

The total scattering attributable to the intrinsic properties of the materials through which an optical wave is propagating.

Off-axis paraboloid and ellipsoid mirrors are specialized optical components used in various optical systems, particularly...

A microring resonator is a compact optical device that utilizes the resonant behavior of light within a small ring-shaped...

Also referred to as differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy; Nomarski microscopy is a unique form of microscopy...

An astronomical telescope is a type of optical instrument designed to gather and magnify light from distant celestial...

Anisotropic is a term used to describe a material or substance that exhibits different properties or behaviors in different...

Nondestructive measurement of the delta and alpha of clad optical fibers that involves interferometry with the fiber...

The use of computer analysis in the calculation of diffraction patterns for information on the design of optical systems. In...

Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where two or more particles become correlated to such an extent...

A cylindrical lens is an optical component that has different curvatures along its two orthogonal axes, resulting in a shape...

In a laser diode, lateral motion of the beam center at the facet when the drive current is changed.

1. With respect to radiation, a device used to attenuate particular wavelengths or frequencies while passing others with...

A device that calibrates the size, position or distance of objects imaged on a video screen.

The Casimir force is a quantum phenomenon that results in an attractive force between two closely spaced uncharged...

A blackbody source, often simply referred to as a blackbody, is a theoretical or practical physical object that absorbs all...

A measure of an optical system's ability to produce an image which separates two points or parallel lines on the object. See...

A photomask, also known simply as a mask or reticle, is a key component in the photolithography process used in...

The re-emission of absorbed energy, having the same wavelength as the incident energy, in an arbitrary direction from a...

An evacuated bulb containing a tungsten filament that is heated by passing an electric current through it. In domestic light...

Displacement in a direction perpendicular to that of the intended displacement, as in a translation stage with simple...

A figure of merit corresponding to the amount of light seen by a viewer through binoculars. A higher number indicates a...

Custom lapping and polishing services involve specialized processes used to improve the surface finish and dimensional...

That length over which energy in two separate waves remains constant. With respect to a laser, the greatest distance between...

In fiber optics, the condition in which each fiber of a bundle carries a separate channel.

The emission of radiant energy in which the energy emitted originates in the thermal motion of the atoms or molecules of the...

The decrease of a component's efficiency, or a reduction in a material's light sensitivity, as the result of accumulated...

The condition in which there are more atomic systems in the upper of two energy levels than in the lower, so stimulated...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique used in medical and scientific fields to capture...

Any of a number of instruments that uses a flame to vaporize a solution of the chemical being analyzed so that light may be...

A method of image dissection whereby a lens transfers images onto a lenticular plate that in turn illustrates the images as...

A self-healing, index-matching, nonporous coating for optical components that can eliminate production difficulties and...

A diffraction grating with lines and grooves formed so as to concentrate the radiation of a particular wavelength into one...

A printing process of electrostatic electrophotography that uses a photoconductive insulating medium, in conjunction with...

A two-electrode, radiation-sensitive junction formed in a semiconductor material in which the reverse current varies with...

A fiber optic end plate constructed by drawing a bundle of parallel fibers embedded in glass and cutting it into thin...

The low-refractive-index material that surrounds the core of an optical fiber to contain core light while protecting against...

An intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) camera is an advanced imaging device that combines the capabilities of both an...

The luminescence of a substance that is produced by energy within it (e.g., radioactive material).

Glass containing small quantities of neodymium oxide that is used as a filter plate in color television or as a lasing...

A form of an element that cannot demonstrate optical activity as a result of dextrogyrate and levogyrate effects that are...

A dark red opaque material that is transparent to the infrared beyond 1 µm.

An optical matrix that does not require perfection in both states of the crosspoint, so that all the optical switches can be...

A source of energy that produces needed excitation for population inversion in laser operation. The excitation source that...

An etalon is an optical device that consists of two parallel reflecting surfaces separated by a precise and known distance....

An instrument used for viewing in low levels of illumination by means of infrared radiation. A high-aperture lens forms an...

The image distortion produced by a panoramic camera with a swinging lens or a swinging mirror in front of a fixed lens. The...

A radiation detector with its active medium mounted within a lens that focuses the radiation signal. The improvement in...

A wave in which energy is focused near a boundary separating materials having different properties. Propagation of the wave...

An electrophoretic display, often referred to as an electronic paper display or e-paper display, is a type of electronic...

Remote inspection refers to the process of inspecting, evaluating, or monitoring assets, equipment, infrastructure, or...

A photoelectrical relay that uses a phototube as its photoelectric device to open and close an electrical relay; used to...

A lamp that has mercury in a tube or bulb that has first been evacuated. The electricity travels through the vapor between...

Spectral domain optical coherence tomography is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics, particularly in...

The restricting aperture located at the front of the lens. It is usually defined as the maximum diameter of the entrance...

The apparent luminosity or glow that immediately envelops the cathode in a gas-discharge tube operating at low pressures....

In optics, degreasers or ultrasonic arrangements used for removing pitch, cement or polishing material from lenses during...

Scientific complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (sCMOS) refers to a type of image sensor technology specifically designed...

Technique using a fiber optic assembly to illuminate an opaque object and transmit an image back from it without a lens...

A coating made up of particular birefringent materials having polarizing properties. It may be used, in some cases, to...

The dispersion attributable to the wavelength dependence of the refractive index of the material used in any optical...

Exhibiting the characteristic of materials that are electrical insulators or in which an electric field can be sustained...

Ultrasound used in the cleaning of metal and optical parts by virtue of its vibration rates. Large acoustic forces break off...

A term used to describe a convex surface having too short a radius of curvature. To correct this condition, material is cut...

A projection printer that is capable of reproducing a multiplicity of images from a master transparency on a single support...

Deep ultraviolet (DUV or deep-UV) refers to a specific range of ultraviolet light with shorter wavelengths than those in the...

Dispersion refers to the phenomenon where different wavelengths (colors) of light travel at different speeds when passing...

An optical instrument consisting of a well- corrected objective lens or mirror with a light source and or object/image (i.e....

A superposition of many zone plates, each reconstructing a real and virtual point image at the appropriate locations upon...

A method used in surface quality testing for accurate positioning and rotation of metal spheres about an axis or fixed point...

The determination of the degree to which a manufactured component can deviate from its ideal specifications of material and...

A light beam whose electric vectors all vibrate in a single fixed plane.

An LED (light-emitting diode) is a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. LEDs...

A plate made up of thousands of glass fibers arranged parallel to one another, i.e., in a coherent bundle, and fused...

A step-by-step method of reducing the amount of data in a digital video signal to transmit or store a high-quality image....

Controlled beam technology that introduces beams of sunlight through holes in a roof that are relayed throughout the...

In a camera or cathode-ray tube, distortion that is designated by a lateral skewing of the reproduced image.

Ultraviolet-C (UV-C) refers to a specific range of ultraviolet radiation with shorter wavelengths than those of visible...

The name of the mixture of liquid and grinding or polishing compounds used in processing optical materials.

Liquid crystals are a state of matter that exhibits properties intermediate between those of conventional liquids and solid...

A monochromator is an optical instrument used to isolate and select a narrow range of wavelengths from a broader spectrum of...

An instrument designed to place nongraphic information, usually generated by a computer, onto photographic film. The...

A standard for fiber optic telecommunications interfaces, with a 1300-nm data link operating over single-mode fiber at data...

The layer of material in a laser diode from which the optical radiation is emitted; light producing region

The length of time during which the receiver is irradiated.

Waves that propagate along the interface between two different media without radiation with exponentially decaying...

A single number, defined by the computer program or the user that expresses the performance of an optical system. Also known...

Piezoresistance is a phenomenon in materials science and physics where the electrical resistance of a material changes in...

The removal of material from an optical system to decrease the weight and sometimes the bulk of the system. See coring;...

A microscope design that involves apertures inserted in conjugate plane positions inside the microscope, with one aperture...

A blank whose basic surface curves are attained by heating and forming a given weight of raw glass; a rough glass blank...

A photon jet is a narrow, highly collimated beam of light that is formed when light interacts with small dielectric...

A grating beamsplitter is an optical device that utilizes the principles of diffraction to split a beam of light into...

A lamp used in projection that is made with a reflector built into the bulb, normally by coating a portion of its interior...

A mechanism or device, especially a coating with a refractive index equal to or slightly greater than that of an optical...

Any object that emits radiation of a wavelength lying between about 0.75 to 1000 µm. A calibrated secondary source...

In Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS), an incident photon (usually laser light) interacts with acoustic phonons in a...

A method of designing lasers whereby the laser rod is cut into elliptical discs and cooled by running water over the disc...

Transparent glassy and or crystalline structured materials engineered from inorganic, non-metallic materials via various...

A special-purpose polarimeter having a scale calibrated directly in the concentration of sugar in the test solution.

A camera equipped with a lens and a long length of perforated film, the latter being moved intermittently between exposures...

An astronomical scanning technique for capturing images of stars without moving the sensor. To perform a drift scan, a CCD...

A device that is fabricated in a single piece; A device (i.e. circuit) that is operated at a single frequency or a single...

A transparent block shaped accurately to reverse curvatures of the components it is used to test. By contacting an...

Fluorescence lifetime refers to the average time it takes for a fluorophore, a molecule that absorbs light at one wavelength...

An optical fiber with a hollow core filled with a liquid material that has a higher refractive index than the solid...

The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The...

The face of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) that has a fiber optic sheet attached to its surface. The sheet's fibers are at right...

Computer numerically controlled (CNC) grinding is a manufacturing process that utilizes computerized controls and precision...

Spectroscopy is a technique used in the study of interactions between matter and electromagnetic radiation. It involves...

An image intensifier that consists of an evacuated tube with a large input phosphor screen at one end. The phosphor screen...

The conduction of electricity in a gas as a result of the ions generated by collisions between electrons and gas molecules.

A photonic crystal that comprises magneto-optical material such that the optical response of the device depends on the...

Also known as constant angle or constant deviation fringes. The interference fringes observed with dense flat plates near...

The visual phenomenon of the apparent difference in the rate of motion of two objects that are actually moving at the same...

A pulsed laser that emits a recurring pulsed output. Frequency of the pulses emitted is known as pulsed recurrence frequency...

A television receiver that receives the signals generated by a television camera directly, or remotely through a radio...

A fiber-coupled photoconductive antenna (FCPA) is a type of optoelectronic device that combines a photoconductive antenna...

The soft x-rays used in the industrial radiography of materials having too small a range of densities to produce an image...

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light...

Lasers based on neodymium-doped yttrium or gadolinium vanadate crystals. These include yttrium vanadate (Nd:YVO4),...

The superimposing of holographic pages in a thick, erasable storage material by changing the reference and object beams....

Multi-axis alignment refers to the process of aligning or adjusting components or systems in multiple spatial dimensions or...

A hologram that is illuminated by a source opposite the viewer.

A device used to rapidly change the Q of an optical resonator. It is used in the optical resonator of a laser to prevent...

A piezoelectric transducer made of a thin strip of piezoelectric material bonded to a strip of metal.

The logarithm of the reciprocal of diffuse transmittance. Diffuse density results when a sample is diffusely illuminated.

A mass-relieving method whereby material is removed through the sides of a reflector in a direction parallel to the surface....

Multiple, interconnected circuit elements, contained on or in a common substrate, that function as a unit and not separately.

Optical elements, often created by micromachining, lithography or vacuum deposition, that rely on diffraction of the...

A means of determining a prism's index of refraction by placing the prism so that its emergent face is perpendicular to the...

A polariscope with a half-shade device and an angular scale generally attached to the analyzer. It is used to measure the...

A heterochromatic photometric process using successive comparison of similar chromaticities and the calculation of relative...

In television, a lateral displacement of the lines from their normal position due to the instability of a synchronizing...

A plastic disc coated with ferric oxide or other films on which data can be stored by selectively magnetizing areas of the...

An electron system using the effect of a constant magnetic field on electron paths to differentiate electrons that have...

1. A localized fracture at the end of a cleaved optical fiber or on a glass surface. 2. An integrated circuit.

A far-field pattern holographically reproduced image that is categorically considered with three-dimensional lensless...

A television system designed to obtain pictures of objects or scenes beneath the surface of the water. Generally, a...

In fiber optic communications, a light source whose beam can be modulated and sent along an optical fiber, and the...

When, for example, a beam of monochromatic light passes through a diffraction grating, the emergent rays that have remained...

A PN-PN device with incident light taking the place of gate current; three of the four semiconductor regions are available...

Also known as integrated exposure. A measurement of light from sources that vary rapidly with time, defined as the integral...

An optical fiber's absorption of electromagnetic waves due to hydroxyl ions remaining after contact with water.

A Kerr soliton refers to a specific type of soliton, a self-reinforcing wave packet, that arises in nonlinear optical...

A detector and signal demodulator used in optical communications systems to receive a signal and often to translate it into...

A reticle carrying patterns of various forms that can be rotated in an optical beam to cause variations in the intensity of...

Attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectroscopy is a technique used in analytical chemistry to obtain IR spectra of samples....

The collection and detection of x-rays by virtue of their ionizing properties. The ionization may be perceived directly by a...

The ratio between the object distance and the image distance measured along the principal axis of a lens or mirror. An...

Conductor element for use in integrated electro-optic systems that measures current flowing through it.

A quantum dot is a nanoscale semiconductor structure, typically composed of materials like cadmium selenide or indium...

An electronic device that minimizes short-term drift effects and random measurement error inherent in alternate...

A Risley prism, also known as a Risley prism pair or Risley rotating prism, is an optical device used for controlling the...

Also referred to as the V number in fiber optics; the normalized frequency is a dimensionless quantity, denoted by the...

Thermography is a technique that involves the use of an infrared imaging device, called a thermal camera or infrared camera,...

A galvanometric scanner, also known as a galvanometer scanner or galvo scanner, is a type of optical scanning device used to...

Tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) is a powerful technique that combines Raman spectroscopy with the enhanced spatial...

The resulting interference pattern generated from moiré deflectometry, the moiré pattern is a pattern...

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...

A device that acquires a signal and then stores it for a specified period of time before processing, and used, for example,...

The coupling of laser or light beams via nonlinear optical techniques such as four-wave mixing to achieve spatial variation...

The active control of various aspects (optical element position, airspace thickness, etc.) of an optical system that...

Freeform optics refers to the design and fabrication of optical surfaces that do not follow traditional symmetric shapes,...

A film or plate that is usually coated on both sides with a very fast emulsion that is sensitive to x-rays, and used to...

A vibrational transition refers to a change in the vibrational energy of a molecule. Molecules consist of atoms that are...

An embossed or marked disk, constructed out of a transparent material and used with a camera system to soften an image.

A digital camera is a device that captures and records still images or video in digital format. Unlike traditional film...

A helium-neon (HeNe) laser is a type of gas laser that emits visible red light at a wavelength of 632.8 nm. It operates...

In optical character recognition, an intermediate step between character location and feature extraction.

A material used to jacket fiber optic cables. It is chemical- and moisture-resistant, but not fire-resistant.

A thin, stretched plastic membrane cemented to a rigid supporting ring. It may be coated to act as a beamsplitter, for...

The creation of a diode laser structure by liquid-phase epitaxy over a grooved substrate.

A reflection hologram using multiple color lasers that integrates various graphical techniques to allow the display of...

A filter that transmits light in a series of sharp, widely spaced wavelength bands by its sandwich construction of...

An Er:YAG laser is a type of solid-state laser that uses a crystal made of erbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet...

A hyperspectral imaging camera is a sophisticated imaging device capable of capturing and processing data across a wide...

A container designed to hold recording material (film, video- and audiotape) so that when it is loaded into a recording...

Also known as cathode rays. Formerly, this term described a stream of electrons emitted from the cathode of a gas-discharge...

Derivative of the half-tone screen process involving the fabrication of a binary pulse-width modulated copy of the...

A lens made from transparent plastic material. Lenses over 31/2 in. in diameter are usually machined, ground and polished....

An acousto-optic modulator (AOM) is a device that utilizes the interaction between sound waves and light waves to modulate...

Fluorescence produced by a material that has been treated with a dilute solution of fluorescing material.

A photon sieve is an optical device used in the field of optics and imaging. It's designed to focus and shape light,...

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a nanolithography technique used for fabricating nanoscale patterns on a substrate. It is a...

A process of isolation of various atom vapor ions by means of tuning a laser source. For example, laser enrichment is...

A device used in measuring attenuation in optical fiber. The loss caused by the bends in a short reference length of fiber...

The greatest luminous reflectance possible for a specified chromaticity.

An optical component coated to reflect infrared radiation. Gold, silver and aluminum are typical coating materials.

A chemical detection technique used to measure molecules that have a magnetic dipole moment. The analysis is directed to...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, single-stranded RNA molecules, typically consisting of about 19 to 24 nucleotides,...

Relation between a material's transport rate and the material's concentration gradient and the diffusion coefficient.

Particle acceleration refers to the process by which charged particles, such as electrons or protons, gain kinetic energy...

A crucible made of electrically resistive material through which a current is passed to heat the material inside, which then...

Glass of special composition that is melted, formed into desired shapes, and subjected to a high-temperature treatment in...

A signal, generated by an oscillator, that provides the means of synchronization of operations in a data communications...

In image processing, the result of a sampling frequency that is too slow to preserve the spatial frequencies of the image....

A phenomenon, exploited for medical imaging, in which the nuclei of material placed in a strong magnetic field will absorb...

The superposition of satellite or aerial images with a map in order to process and remove distortion. Uses reference points...

1. An instrument used to measure the opacity or density of dyes, pigments or dispersed particles that form an image in or on...

The physical area containing an assembly of computer graphics equipment for presenting generated images and allowing...

An instrument in which visible light beyond the critical angle from a metallurgical microscope is focused on a reference...

The power that gives rise to the production of energy at the rate of 1 joule per second.

An InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) camera is a type of imaging device that utilizes InGaAs sensors to capture images in the...

A phonon is a quantum of vibrational energy associated with the periodic motion of atoms or molecules in a crystalline...

An image that is not immediately recognizable but scrambled.

A type of stereoscopic photography in which a pair of lenses focuses a pair of images, relative to the positions of the two...

A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite characterized by its standardized size and modular design. CubeSats are...

A nonoptical surface, within lenses and lens mounts, that contributes largely to flare by reflecting light into the image...

A polarizing prism assembly made up of two cemented calcite halves. The prism transmits the ordinary ray without deviation,...

Attenuation refers to the gradual loss or reduction of intensity, force, or magnitude of a particular property as it...

A term that describes both the color and intensity of the immediate environment of the object or image being viewed.

A liquid crystal light valve (LCLV), also known as a spatial light modulator (SLM), is an optical device that modulates the...

A type of birefringent polarizing prism that transmits the extraordinary ray and removes the ordinary ray through total...

An optically pumped solid-state laser in which the active medium is a neodymium ion in a glass rod host. Abbreviated...

A swept-source laser, also known as a wavelength-swept laser, is a type of laser that rapidly and continuously changes its...

Azimuthal polarization refers to a specific polarization state of light where the electric field vector of the...

A function of the intensity distribution in an image aberrated by a quadratic curvature wavefront distortion.

Nonimage-forming light, concentrated or diffuse, that is transmitted through the lens to the image. It is frequently the...

Two-photon polymerization (TPP) is a technique used in additive manufacturing, specifically in the field of 3D printing. It...

Birefringence is an optical property of certain materials that causes them to exhibit different refractive indices for light...

Spectra that originate from atoms; they are composed of lines having irregular spacing and intensity.

An electrical problem that occurs when voltage is not the same with respect to ground at every node of a system, causing...

Diamond turning refers to a precision machining process used to produce complex optical components, particularly lenses and...

A type of laser diode that operates at long pulsewidths.

Graphene is a two-dimensional allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal...

In physics, the law of reversibility is often associated with the concept of reversibility in thermodynamics. The law...

The series of interference bands that appear in the spectrum when a specified glass plate is inserted into a spectroscope,...

A lens, usually having one or more cylindrical surfaces, used to produce distorted images and later to restore them to true...

A semiconductor material used in photodetectors, sensitive in the infrared up to 5 µm.

Retroreflection is a phenomenon in optics where light is reflected back toward its source, typically in a direction nearly...

Enhanced picture archiving and communication system (PACS) display (ePAD) is a software tool used in medical imaging to...

A hologram formed with an object located close to the recording medium.

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is a manufacturing process that builds three-dimensional objects...

Lithography is a key process used in microfabrication and semiconductor manufacturing to create intricate patterns on the...

A plate made of a double-refracting crystal having such a density that a phase difference of one-quarter cycle is formed...

Concerned with the transmission and reception of both sight and sound. An audiovisual system communicates pictorial images...

An electroluminescent semiconductor that emits low intensity radiation in the green or red regions. Used as an indicator...

A set of photodiodes with no gaps between them that can sense the displacement of a spot of light anywhere on the sensing...

A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is a compact and integrated device that incorporates multiple photonic components and...

A digital imaging method whereby the first gray level of each sequential point-by-point sample and its position in the...

An experimental lens used to produce interference fringes. A positive lens is cut into halves along its center, and the...

A negative powered lens with one surface convex and the other concave, the latter having the greater curvature. It also is...

An instrument designed for laser technology that is used to extract single pulses from the laser and transmit a portion of...

A process used in the design, repair and customization of integrated circuits. A low-power laser etches a silicon wafer...

In optical communications, the translation of optical signals into radio signals, lowering their frequency in detection from...

A glass-ceramic material developed in Russia. Astrosital resembles Zerodur in terms of its ultralow thermal expansion. Other...

Abbreviated TEA CO2 laser. A gas laser that provides shorter pulses and higher peak powers than conventional CO2 lasers. The...

A system that determines whether an image is in or out of focus by means of a source of illumination at the conjugate focal...

A support for optical parts comprising a solid bed that permits precise longitudinal movement of one component relative to...

A digital twin refers to a virtual representation or digital counterpart of a physical object, system, or process. This...

The moving spot of light emitted by a source, generally a cathode-ray tube, to illuminate specific points of an area...

A traveling microscope or an automatic microdensitometer used to measure the spectrum plate obtained in a spectrograph.

Reflectance spectroscopy is a technique used to analyze the reflective properties of materials across various wavelengths of...

Reactive evaporation refers to a process in thin-film deposition where a material is deposited onto a substrate through...

The technology that deals with the interaction of organic materials with light and other forms of radiant energy whose...

Interferometric modulator display (IMOD) is a type of display technology used in electronic devices, known for its energy...

The radiation emitted from a group of charged particles that does not depend on the temperature of the source in which those...

1. In a plane Cartesian coordinate system, the vertical axis orthogonal to the X-axis. 2. In a quartz crystal structure, the...

Noise created by patterns imaged on a CCD surface. Pixel sensitivity is altered by responsivity during illumination.

Turbidity is a measure of the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by the presence of suspended particles. These...

A low-power telescope with a wide field of view, typically attached to a higher power telescope with a narrower field of...

A shutter actuated by means other than mechanical springs for timings on the order of nanoseconds. The shutter is used in...

A closed-loop system that is constantly adjusted in response to input signals generated within the system.

A Nernst glower, also known simply as a Nernst lamp or Nernst filament, is a type of incandescent lamp or radiant heater...

A system mounted a few inches above a moving plane that consists of a light source, lenses and one or more phototubes. In...

The direct influence of light on the magnetic susceptibility of particular materials.

A probe card is a testing device used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry to evaluate and test the electrical...

A type of internal photonic connection in an integrated circuit in which a holographic grating is used to focus light at...

Machine vision, also known as computer vision or computer sight, refers to the technology that enables machines, typically...

Lens testing equipment refers to a range of specialized tools and instruments used to evaluate the optical performance,...

1. The sector of the Earth's surface registered upon a remote sensing device in a satellite. 2. The amount of space occupied...

A filter, partially opaque to near-ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation, that may be made by exposing and processing...

Flow cytometry is a powerful technique used in biology and medicine for the quantitative analysis of the physical and...

In semiconductor physics and materials science, the term "III-V materials" refers to compounds composed of elements from...

Also referred to as the opposition surge, the opposition effect is a photometric phenomenon in which a rough retroreflective...

Methodology for specifying color based on the CIE sources, observers, and coordinate system.

A hologram formed when the light of the illuminating beam is absorbed in correspondence with the recording exposure. In...

A high-resolution imaging instrument that can detect and measure the positions of individual atoms on the surface of a...

Light leakage at a total reflecting interface when another highly refractive medium is brought close to it.

In image processing, modifying the dot that forms the image in order to simulate a series of gray tones.

The maximum rate at which temporally disjunct optical signals can be produced or detected.

Radiation whose spectrum runs between 100 and 300 nm. Any work with these wavelengths requires evacuated equipment.

Solar regions characterized by low density and open magnetic fields where high-speed solar wind streams originate....

1. A device generally used in a cathode-ray or camera tube to emit a stream of electrons moving at uniform velocity in a...

A term describing an antireflection coating that may be applied to optics that cannot tolerate the high temperatures usually...

A method of analysis in which a pulsed laser beam is used to heat a particle, producing a plasma, or laser spark. As the...

Photographing of terrain on the ground and objects in the air by cameras mounted in aircraft; utilized in satellites,...

The study concerned with the stimulation of chemical activity by laser light as a result of the absorption of photons by a...

A femtosecond laser is a type of laser that emits ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of femtoseconds,...

A cathode-ray display where information is represented visually as spots. Each spot's location is represented by a...

A lens with one surface convex and the other concave, the latter having the greater curvature. It also is known as a...

Protective material surrounding the cladding of an optical fiber that allows the fiber no play within it.

An instrument that uses a blackened silver-disc reflector with a shutter to create temperature fluctuations that are...

A material widely used as a transparent conductive coating.

Computer hardware or firmware that accesses character patterns stored in read-only memory and displays them at specific...

A wedge in a rangefinder or heightfinder used to displace the image produced by one telescope so that it coincides with that...

The hollow electrode used in emission spectroscopy to hold the material to be examined and, using an arc or spark source, to...

A transition boundary between two regions having different properties in a P-type semiconducting material.

A very uncommon lamp in which a tungsten electrode is heated to incandescence by a radio-frequency electrical current.

1. The process by which an atom acquires energy sufficient to raise it to a quantum state higher than its ground state. 2....

FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer is a powerful analytical instrument used to obtain an infrared spectrum of...

Postulated by Einstein in his theory of relativity. They are waves traveling at the speed of light and exerting force on...

A microcomb, short for microresonator frequency comb, is a novel photonic device that generates a precise series of evenly...

A visual spectrophotometer with a rhomb located directly before the entrance aperture of a constant-deviation...

A camera accurately aligned to a weapons system to provide a photographic record of system performance.

A cathode-ray tube that generates symbols for use in other displays. The tube operates by scanning specific characters on...

An instrument consisting essentially of a tube 160 mm long, with an objective lens at the distant end and an eyepiece at the...

An electronic device consisting of a semiconductor material, generally germanium or silicon, and used for rectification,...

A tabulation of predicted positions that have been calculated for one or more celestial bodies or orbiting satellites.

Designating any instrument in which both eyes can be used to view the image to achieve a stereoscopic effect, or merely to...

A photometer used to measure sky brightness and polarization associated with zodiacal light, background starlight, F-region...

A method of determining the abrasion resistance of very hard materials by passing a weighted wiper blade across them in a...

Rate at which optical radiation or a signal is varied through the use of a mechanical or electronic chopper. Also called...

Piezoelectric motion systems are mechanical systems that utilize piezoelectric materials to generate controlled motion or...

A photonic cavity, also known as an optical cavity, is a structure that confines electromagnetic radiation within a certain...

The radiation spectrum of matter found in condensed states, liquid or solid, that is continuous and not a line spectrum. The...

Cathode radiant sensitivity refers to the ability of a photocathode to convert incident radiant energy, typically in the...

An assembly of fibers in which the coordinates of each fiber are the same at the two ends of the bundle. Also called...

A substance that increases a material's sensitivity to electromagnetic irradiation. In photodynamic therapy, a drug used to...

In data transmission, a self-checking code using a separate bit (the parity bit) to assure that all bytes of transmitted...

A large-scale, precise drawing of the contours of a perfect mechanical part, often with plus and minus tolerances drawn or...

A cathode-ray tube combined with an electrostatic storage unit that is used to introduce, store and retrieve information...

The capacity of a chiral substance such as a crystal or molecule to rotate the plane of polarized light that is transmitted...

Radiography using the emission of gamma rays to form an image of the structure penetrated by the radiation.

Measurement estimated from the position of the image's centroid.

Proportions of standard primaries (tristimulus values) required for a color match; ratios of each tristimulus value of a...

A statistical method of dealing with a series of values where each value is squared, the sum of these squares is calculated...

A mechanism in a camera designed to position the film in the focal plane for exposure.

A large telescope mirror fabricated from several smaller sections.

The prevailing temperature in the immediate vicinity of the object; the temperature of its environment.

The illusory appearance of a light or dark band at a line of brightness contrast that enhances the edge between the two...

In photography, the layer of light-sensitive material (usually a suspension of silver halide crystals) that coats the film...

Data or encoded information capable of being eradicated, leaving the media free for rewriting. Also called reversible.

The interaction of superimposed light from two separate sources that results in a combined intensity that is less than the...

A passive infrared system that uses two line-of-sight telescopes to generate both narrow and wide field-of-view images of...

A shutter having one or more roller blinds of material with a variable slit that moves across the back of the camera when...

Minimum object distance, often abbreviated as MOD, refers to the closest distance at which a camera lens or optical system...

Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are substances or compounds used to enhance the thermal conductivity between two surfaces...

The time rate of flow of radiant energy, expressed in watts (W), and carries the units of Joule per second (J/s). The prefix...

Digital signal processing (DSP) refers to the manipulation and analysis of signals, which are representations of physical...

Edge enhancement technique that accentuates all edge details in an image without discriminating as to spatial orientation.

Ultrasonic refers to sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing, typically above...

A highly accurate cathode-ray tube used to display information with the utmost efficient stability and resolution. The...

A semiconductor device with the property of conducting current more easily in one direction than the other. It has two...

Meta-optics, also known as metasurface optics or flat optics, is a branch of optics that involves the design, fabrication,...

The total range of wavelengths, extending from the shortest to the longest wavelength or conversely, that can be generated...

Modulator/demodulator. An electronic device that modulates and demodulates signals transmitted over communications lines.

MWIR stands for mid-wave infrared, referring to a specific range of wavelengths within the infrared spectrum. Infrared...

A laser warning and countermeasure system containing a sensor that indicates the direction of a laser beam, and analytical...

1. A bundle of light rays that may be parallel, converging or diverging. 2. A concentrated, unidirectional stream of...

An optical switch that controls conduction paths into and out of a junction in fiber optic and integrated optical circuits.

Optical switching refers to the process of controlling the routing or transmission of optical signals within a network using...

Carbonization is a process in which organic materials are heated in the absence of air, leading to the decomposition of the...

A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording,...

In optical communication systems, operations in which the amplitude of the pulses, as opposed to their width, determines the...

The refraction that would take place in an idealized atmosphere where the refractive index is reduced uniformly with height...

Brillouin scattering is a phenomenon in physics where an incident electromagnetic wave (usually light) interacts with...

The study of the celestial bodies, relative to x-ray emission. Satellites launched to study x-ray sources have revealed many...

A wide-field camera based on the classic Schmidt optical system used to photograph Earth-orbiting satellites.

A flaw deliberately introduced into an optical fiber to prepare it for cleaving.

Embedded vision refers to the integration of computer vision technologies into various embedded systems, devices, or...

The ratio of Young's modulus to density of a material.

A ruticon is an opto-electronic device in which light going through it can be modulated by an electric field. The...

A method of erasable optical data storage in which information is stored by visible light, then read by illumination with an...

The state of optically excited luminescence. Luminescence refers to the light emitted by excited atoms or ions as they decay...

The point spread function (PSF) is a fundamental concept in imaging that describes the response of an imaging system to a...

Infrared radiation emitted from a source that is not heated sufficiently to give off visible radiation.

A phase-modulated sensor is a type of sensor that uses modulation of the phase of a signal to measure changes in a physical...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful analytical technique that enhances the Raman scattering signal of...

That property of a material that determines that velocity of propagation within the material is the same for all directions.

In a waveguide, the material in intimate contact with the cladding surface, applied to preserve the integrity of that...

The recording of three or more separate holograms having a different color on a medium, so that illumination with a tricolor...

A mode of data transmission whereby each bit of information is generated separately, with some stop/start code to indicate...

1. Also known as near-field diffraction. The field of radiation sent through an aperture in an absorbing screen at large...

A camera designed to record at rates exceeding 50 fps. For frame rates up to about 500 fps, an ordinary pull-down mechanism...

A unique glass made up of nano-structured materials to create millimeter sized monolithic glass space-variant polarization...

A lateral shearing interferometer is an optical device used in interferometry to measure phase differences between two beams...

Calculated quantity of the entire longitudinal wave of a solid substance's electron gas.

A phototube that functions within a vacuum and thus eliminates the effects of gaseous ionization on its electrical...

An aggravated form of fog in a polished surface caused by the scattering of light. The defects causing haze are larger than...

An instrument used to measure the luminance (brightness) of a distant object. The object is viewed through a small...

Film that produces color negatives or transparencies by the use of three emulsions, one coated over the other, that are each...

A rotating chamber that can be spun at different speeds to generate great radial forces used to simulate different gravity...

The pattern formed by a character generation cathode-ray tube system, in which the characters are composed of a sequence of...

1. A device used in chemistry to compare the colors of solutions held in flat-bottomed tubes and viewed along the length of...

The intensification of a latent image, because of exposure to light to which the emulsion is otherwise insensitive.

A CCD image sensor, or charge-coupled device image sensor, is a type of electronic device used to convert optical images...

The use of atoms, molecules and molecular-scale structures to enhance existing technology and develop new materials and...

Two plane mirrors that are not wholly located in the same plane. When light from a point source or slit reflects from the...

Primarily the measurement of photographic sensitivity of certain materials such as photographic film. It refers to the...

An intensified charge-coupled device that uses a large negative charge at the grid to switch off the flow of electrons at...

A series of capacitors and inductors connected to the flashlamp in a pumped Nd:YAG laser system in order to regulate the...

A device used to evaluate the luminance of a surface by determining the number of photons emitted from a sample surface area.

1. The combination of the effects of two or more stimuli in any given sense to form a single sensation. With respect to...

The reddish/purple color that results when equal amounts of blue and red are combined so that no one wavelength dominates.

A defect of a binocular instrument causing two images to be seen separately instead of being fused. It is caused when the...

Chromatic aberration is an optical phenomenon that occurs when different wavelengths (colors) of light are refracted by a...

Ellipsometry is an optical technique used to characterize the properties of thin films and surfaces. It is based on the...

Photoimmunotherapy (PIT) is a medical treatment approach that combines elements of phototherapy and immunotherapy to target...

A colorimetric concept related to the apparent visual color of a source (not its temperature). For a blackbody, the color...

A screen composed of a sheet of diffusing plastic material that reveals excellent image detail for close viewing. It is...

The output of spectral channels written as an integral function of known solar irradiance, atmospheric transmittance and...

Fluorescence microscopy is a specialized optical imaging technique used in biology, chemistry, and materials science to...

Elastic scattering that occurs when inelastic processes eliminate particles from the beam.

Optoelectronics is a branch of electronics that focuses on the study and application of devices and systems that use light...

Used in halftone screens to change the fundamental sampled spatial frequency of the halftoned picture, as well as varying...

A device where each pixel in the detector array is mated with a preamplifier on a single silicon chip, providing sensing and...

A Dammann grating is a type of diffractive optical element (DOE) used to create an array of equally spaced,...

Filtered light to which photographic or other photosensitive materials are not responsive; used to illuminate darkrooms when...

A spectrum that originates from molecules and that is composed of bands which, in turn, consist of many closely spaced...

A unit of energy equal to the amount of energy absorbed by one molecule of material undergoing a photochemical reaction, as...

A holographic grating is a type of diffraction grating that is produced using holographic recording techniques. It consists...

An atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS) is an analytical instrument used to determine the concentration of specific chemical...

Referring to compound semiconductor materials combining one element that has three valence electrons with one or more that...

A physical stop that is conjugate to the entrance pupil and is used primarily to reduce diffraction effects at longer...

Gas detection measurement technique that uses a built-in capacitative microphone to calculate the amount of absorbed laser...

A solid block of glass-ceramic material with holes drilled the length of all four sides, and mirrors attached to the corners...

The law stating that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, the incident ray, reflected ray and normal...

A man-made satellite that orbits 35,680 km from the Earth at a rate of one orbit per 24-hour period, thereby retaining its...

The vertical or horizontal distance between two addressable points on a display screen; indicates the basic resolution...

A television system that uses a slow rate of horizontal scanning to increase its reproduction and transmittance accuracy of...

In an optical system, noise created by mode-dependent optical losses and variations in the distribution of radiant power...

The material that produces stimulated emission from within a laser oscillator. Laser gain media may vary from...

Birefringence of materials that is induced or altered by stress fields.

The phenomenon that can render an optical resonator the equivalent of a semiconductor flip-flop. A bistable device will...

An optical crystal that possesses a strong nonlinear dielectric response function to optical radiation. A material with a...

A microscopic crystal found in an intricately crystallized substance that is only visible under a microscope.

A photoconductive cell having greatest sensitivity in the infrared region. The photosensitive material of the cell is lead...

The code used to describe the United States system of color telecasting.

A quantitative measurement of the coherence of a light source; equal to the visibility (V) of the fringes of a two-beam...

1. In a cathode-ray tube, the glow surrounding a bright spot that appears on the fluorescent screen as the result of the...

A lens aberration that results in the tangential and sagittal image planes being separated axially.

A laser radar application in which a sequence of direct measurements of target position is fed into a tracking filter to...

A pulsed laser having molecular nitrogen as laser material and a wavelength output of 337 nm in the ultraviolet region. It...

A waveguide is a physical structure or device that is designed to confine and guide electromagnetic waves, such as radio...

The Lorentz oscillator model is a theoretical model used in physics to describe the response of a charged particle (such as...

A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or...

A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into...

1. A thin parallel plate of material that transmits in the infrared region. See infrared optical material. 2. A spectral...

A device having a plane mirror so mounted that it can be set to reflect sunlight into a piece of laboratory equipment. It is...

With respect to television, a potentiometer that allows variation of the intensity of the different elements of an image and...

The process of aligning the crystallites in a piezoelectric material by placing a large DC field across the element at an...

A microchannel plate (MCP) is a specialized electron multiplier device used in various applications such as particle...

Ray tracing is a rendering technique used in computer graphics to simulate the way light interacts with objects in a scene....

A calculated measure of the ability of an incident force to cause an object to spin. The spin speed of any given object is a...

A beamsplitter is an optical device for dividing a beam into two or more separate beams. A simple beamsplitter may be a very...

The detection and analysis of naturally formed extraterrestrial electromagnetic radiation within the radio frequency range...

A coating made up of many layers of material having alternating high and low refractive index. In this way, it is possible...

Pitch for polishing mixed with other materials to give it the right viscosity so that it will follow the fine-ground lens...

A filter that maximizes signal-to-noise ratio so that a waveform of known shape can be separated from random noise.

A finite version of Shannon's sampling theorem that states that a class of functions can be reconstructed exactly by a...

A process by which the ionizing capabilities of a laser beam are used to break initiate conduction between pairs of...

A glow discharge tube placed on an insulating rod to detect the presence of high-frequency radiation in the vicinity of a...

A ring dye laser that uses prisms and a saturable absorber within the laser cavity to shape and shorten the pulses...

Optical fiber is a thin, flexible, transparent strand or filament made of glass or plastic used for transmitting light...

A material that is present or added to a sample undergoing spectroscopic analysis, to serve as an intensity reference for...

A measure of the transmittance through an optical medium. Optical density equals the log to the base 10 of the reciprocal of...

The process of perforating a silicon or ceramic substrate with a series of tiny holes along which it will break. Nd:YAG or...

Medical lasers are devices that produce intense beams of light with specific characteristics and properties, which are used...

An image intensifier tube in which the photocathode and the output of the microchannel plate are proximity-focused on the...

A charge-injection device (CID) refers to a class of devices that manipulate and detect electrical charge within a...

Refers to the transistors in which the working current flows through only one type of semiconductor material, either P-type...

The analysis of the properties of radiation, such as light, when acted upon by variations in the atmosphere. Blue and red...

A 2D profile sensor is a type of sensor used in various industrial and technological applications to measure and capture...

A photoreceptor material used in solar cells and in drums for laser printers and high-speed copiers because of its high...

A microscope that can be used to observe and magnify microscope specimens while they are being centrifuged. The objective...

In image acquisition (and sampling theory), the postulate that the pickup sampling frequency must be a minimum of twice as...

A type of sheathing for fiber optic cable that incorporates a coil of metal; often used in harsh environments.

Photogrammetry is a technique used to obtain accurate three-dimensional measurements of objects and environments through the...

In optics, a pattern, such as the Buchmann-Meyer pattern, that may be viewed when the record surface is illuminated by a...

A semiconductor platelet laser that emits a coherent image by means of plane optical pumping over the platelet surface, and...

In astronomy, the method of deliberately viewing objects with peripheral vision to take advantage of the eye's greater...

A prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. It usually has two parallel bases,...

Incapable of being penetrated by any form of radiation.

The pattern of physical or chemical changes that has taken place in a photographic emulsion, by its exposure to light, that...

A process used in document copying and printing that involves the visible rendering of an invisible electrostatic image on a...

Q-switched operation, or q-switching, is a technique used in lasers to produce short and intense pulses of light. The term...

The process whereby a blank or disc is heated to a sufficiently high temperature to sag into a mold having a desired...

The pattern used as a probe in morphological image processing to manipulate the size and shape of objects in an image.

1. With respect to angular subtense, a source of light, such as a star, that is very small. In a lab, a point source may be...

A small convergent lens, located between the objective and eyepiece of a microscope, that focuses an image of the upper...

An infrared camera, also known as a thermal imaging camera or IR camera, is a device that captures and visualizes the...

The Foucault test is performed by moving a knife edge laterally into the image of a small point source. The eye, or a...

Epitaxial equipment refers to a set of specialized tools and systems used in the process of epitaxy, which is the growth of...

A transparent plate ruled with black lines and equal, clear spaces. It is used as a multiple knife-edge for testing a...

A pattern on an oscilloscope display that consists of a string of shapes that resemble eyes. Because the pattern becomes...

A telescope with a concave paraboloidal objective mirror and a small plane (diagonal) mirror that reflects rays from the...

A device used to measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules. It utilizes the Lorentz force...

A light source, such as the sun or an incandescent lamp, that freely penetrates ordinary glass bulbs and emits in the...

A type of laser for which a large number of the components can be fabricated in or upon a single substrate.

A disc composed of a series of holographic optical elements that diffract light at various angles. When spinning, a raster...

An instrument that uses electromagnetic fields to sort out the relative masses of atoms and molecules.The same way an...

A measuring instrument used for surface profiling and quantifying the roughness of a material. The stylus is placed on the...

Term synonymous with refractive index liquid, but related more to tank or chamber immersion of crystals, fibers, lenses,...

The principle that states that optical instrumentation cannot increase the radiance of a source; the radiance of an image...

A specific type of storage in which the material to be written on is heated above its transition temperature and switched in...

1. A piece of glass with plane parallel surfaces used to admit light into an optical system and to exclude dirt and...

Oleophobic is a term used to describe substances or materials that repel or resist oils. The word oleophobic comes from the...

A material having refractive indices that can be altered by an applied electric field.

The production of rough glass lens blanks that are pressed while red-hot to the approximate size and shape of the finished...

The photographic recording of an image formed by the alteration in electrical properties of the sensitive materials and...

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that...

Substances that exhibit the characteristics of both acids and bases and are capable of both P- and N-type conductivity.

Also called scanning laser acoustic microscope. A device that uses high-frequency ultrasound waves to penetrate surfaces. A...

A transparent sphere that has an index of refraction that is different from that of the medium surrounding it; used in...

An automatic camera that can record reduced images of documents at a rate of up to 30,000 documents per hour by having the...

A lens system that is capable of producing a 360° image, or one that is very close to that. In recording, the image may...

An alexandrite laser is a solid-state laser that utilizes a synthetic crystal made from the rare earth element alexandrite...

An operational mode for radiometers that analogs the method of operation of an angstrom pyrheliometer. In this mode, the...

Also referred to as a band-stop or band rejection filter; a notch filter is a filter that is designed to screen out a very...

A pixel, short for "picture element," is the smallest controllable element of a digital image or display. It is a...

The number of molecules in one gram mole of a substance, numerically approximated by 6.02 x 1023.

The qualities of color associated with hue and saturation, but not brightness or lightness.

Extensive data storage in the form of bits, with the use of high-resolution photographic materials and optics, and generally...

An electron-beam lithography (EBL) system is a sophisticated nanofabrication tool used in the semiconductor industry and...

A material consisting of very small colorless particles imbedded in a clear glass matrix. It is available in two forms:...

Descriptive of the radiant power of visible light modified by the eye response. It is the measure of the flow of visible...

Interaction of a magnetic field with a photoconductive substance exposed to light to create a potential difference.

A hole filled with dirt such as a polishing abrasive and located in an optical surface. See dig; scratch.

Structural color refers to coloration in materials that is not caused by pigments or dyes but is instead a result of the...

The outer material that surrounds and protects the buffered and unbuffered fibers in an optical cable.

The absorption index represents the imaginary component of the complex index of refraction, and not the real component. The...

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that integrates digital information, typically in the form of computer-generated...

An optical recording technique that uses light source(s), a beamsplitting cube, light detector(s) and an optical fiber...

1. A strainmeter capable of measuring the change in the relationship between two reference points, provided that the points...

A method of measuring complex sequential photosynthetic reactions by varying the pulse time and wavelength of light...

The instrument used to analyze a pulsed electromagnetic wave to determine its time, amplitude, duration and shape, and to...

An electro-optic modulator (EOM) is a device used to modulate the amplitude, phase, or polarization of light waves using an...

Anisotropy refers to the property of exhibiting different values or characteristics when measured in different directions....

Hyperspectral imaging is an advanced imaging technique that captures and processes information from across the...

A camera mounted on an optical bench with an easel to hold the material to be copied. Magnification can be varied over a...

In astronomy, the relation that states that the intensity of a star's visible radiation is inversely proportional to the...

A type of high-speed photographic shutter that uses Faraday rotation to produce exposure times as fast as 1 microsecond. It...

The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is an optical device used for measuring the wavefront aberrations of an optical system....

In spectacle lenses, the lateral measurement of a multifocal segment at its maximum width.

The angle at which photoelectric sensors are aligned to prevent light from being reflected back to the sensor from the...

An infrared imaging device composed of a detector array and readout electronics. It may include a cryogenic cooling system....

A set of algorithms used to study the structural and spatial characteristics of objects in a digitized image for...

The length of the small space within which the atmosphere exhibits coherence, particularly in relation to an observer on...

A microscope to which a beamsplitter and illuminated reticle have been added to measure the radius of curvature of a...

In optical character recognition systems, the identification of a character facilitated by means of known factors governing...

A GRIN (gradient index) lens is a type of optical lens that utilizes a gradient in refractive index across its volume rather...

A device attached to the end of an alignment telescope that detects and calculates a plane mirror's rotation axis that is...

An afocal optical device made up of lenses or mirrors, usually with a magnification greater than unity, that renders distant...

A branched fiber optic lightguide that performs both receiving and transmitting functions.

A machine vision system is an integrated combination of hardware and software components designed to capture, process, and...

A two-mirror lens design used in astronomical telescopes, the primary being a parabola, the secondary a smaller hyperbola....

A noncontact, nondestructive method of measuring defects in thin composite materials, using a xenon flashtube to generate...

A type of conducting surface or material used to reflect radiant energy.

Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) is a therapeutic approach that utilizes the combination of light, a photosensitizer, and...

Luminescence is the emission of light that occurs without the involved substance undergoing a significant increase in...

An optical combiner, in the context of optics and display technologies, refers to a device or component that combines...

An acoustic wave that propagates along the surface of a solid and decays exponentially with substrate depth. Also called a...

In interlaced television scanning, an effect in which the lines of one field fail to fall exactly within the lines of the...

A dark region created by spherical aberration of an eyepiece's exit pupil. Because of the aberration, an observer's eye must...

Characteristic of a surface or object that has luminous flux incident upon it.

Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and...

A device to hold and locate a workpiece as it guides, controls or limits a cutting tool.

A camera that uses a rotating mirror to project sequential images onto lenses that are arranged in an arc. The reflected...

A pair of telescopes with prismatically erected images, mounted side by side with the eyepieces at the interocular distance...

A mode of data transmission whereby each bit is generated in sequence on a single carrier.

Means of determining the relative motion of a (seismic) mass or acceleration body from a stable laser operated system.

A semiconductor diode operating in either a coherent or incoherent mode that is used as a near-infrared or visible source in...

A bundle of rays that originates from an object point on the optical axis of a lens system.

The highest frequency at which a laser diode can be driven and still be modulated acceptably that further results in the...

Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe spectroscopy (APAP) is an advanced technique in ultrafast spectroscopy that allows...

A surface heat-treating process that produces a highly stressed surface. In case-hardening of glass, a plate of glass is...

A document-transmitting process that uses a cylinder that rotates the document to be scanned and detected by a photoelectric...

A lens intended for use with wavelengths shorter than about 380 nm. It must be made of quartz, calcium fluoride, lithium...

Automated optical inspection (AOI) is a technology used in manufacturing processes, particularly in electronics, to...

Describing the standard television method of raster scanning in which the image is the product of two fields, each of which...

A spectrophotometer that measures the amount of ozone in the atmosphere through a comparison of solar energy at two...

That property of a material indicating that it will react when exposed to light energy.

Noise generated in the flow of current in the photomultiplier, produced by the intentional or controlled application of...

1. In fiber optics, a protective material applied as an optical fiber cover that has no optical function. 2. In image...

A photodetector, also known as a photosensor or photodiode, is a device that detects and converts light into an electrical...

Single-mode fiber that preserves the plane of polarization of the light launched into it as the beam propagates through its...

A magnon is a quasiparticle representing a quantized spin wave in a magnetic material. In other words, it is a collective...

A spectroscopic process that detects and analyzes the discharge from an extrinsic surface with less than bandgap light. This...

An instrument designed to produce an x-ray spectrum of a material as an aid in identifying it. This technique is...

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive analytical technique that uses the near-infrared region of the...

An absorbing coating medium between fibers, used in some fused fiber optic plates to absorb unwanted light. Such coatings...

The field of view seen through some types of coincidence rangefinders. It is formed by the juxtaposition of opposite halves...

A doped or absorbing transparent medium cut or molded into a wedge in order to measure the real and imaginary components of...

A chart, either printed on paper or prepared photographically on glass plates or film, that consists of 3-bar resolution...

A solid-state device, composed of silicon, that is used to convert radiation into electrical energy.

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) technology that utilizes organic compounds to...

GigE, short for gigabit Ethernet, refers to a standard for high-speed Ethernet communication, capable of transmitting data...

A measuring instrument composed of a microscope and reticle, and mounted on a calibrated slide mechanism. May be used...

In the context of imaging, particularly digital imaging and printing, "orange peel" refers to a texture or visual distortion...

An optical cable that is connector terminated. Generally, an optical cable that has been terminated by a manufacturer and is...

Holography is a technique used to capture and reconstruct three-dimensional images using the principles of interference and...

An electrically conductive layer for carrying off static charges that might accumulate on a surface.

Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) is a superresolution microscopy technique that enables imaging of...

For a Fabry-Perot interferometer or etalon, a value for the transmission bandwidth which can be calculated as the ratio of...

The finite amount of electrical charge generated in response to incident radiation and transferred from one storage element...

An instrument that spectrally analyzes the flux reflected from a material. The reflected flux may be total, diffuse or...

Also known as cathodic etching. Surface etching achieved by bombarding an evacuated surface with gas ions.

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) refers to a specific range of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum....

A chemical placed in a solution that will indicate when an excess of a substance or ion has been reached by coloring the...

A spectrum of component wavelengths whose values are separate from each other.

A detector-Dewar assembly typically refers to a combination of a detector and a Dewar flask used in scientific instruments,...

The study of flames by means of a laser emitting blue light and a spectrometer to measure the green fluorescence created by...

A waveguide made up of a dielectric material, such as plastic or mica, in a cylindrical form, through which the waves travel.

A single long gate electrode that transfers the line of charge packets to the transport shift register in a charge-coupled...

Diamond turning, also known as diamond machining or diamond cutting, is a precision machining process used to produce...

A method of lasing in which free electrons in a laser-produced plasma collide with neonlike ions to excite electrons to...

An x-ray or radium photograph illustrating the nonuniform density of the structure that the rays penetrate.

Fiber optic cable that operates at the 1300-nm wavelength.

Observed phenomenon in laser pulses in which a large number of excited electrons are created and in which multiphoton...

A mid-infrared camera is a type of imaging device designed to capture images in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectral range,...

Describing a surface that is coated with a film of metal of such thickness that it transmits about one-half of the incident...

One of two types of solar time - the other being apparent solar time - the mean solar time is the time measured by the...

A type of ultrasensitive laser spectroscopy that can detect quantities as small as a single atom of some substances and that...

Refers to the variety of techniques that use the interference pattern produced by laser light diffusely reflected by an...

The fundamental wavelength standard of time or frequency. An atomic standard, it is properly expressed as 9,192,631,770...

Nonlinear optical materials are substances that exhibit optical properties that are not linearly proportional to the...

Filoviruses are a family of viruses that are responsible for severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fevers in humans and...

A number that indicates the magnitude of the shift in a solid of positive and negative charges in opposite directions when a...

Intravital microscopy is an imaging technique used to visualize biological processes within living organisms, typically in...

Laser drift typically refers to a phenomenon where the frequency or wavelength of a laser source gradually changes over...

A material or system that emits x-rays.

The temperature at which the solid phase of a material is in equilibrium with the liquid phase, or when the material changes...

A point source of light used for the test and evaluation of image quality. May be a backlit pinhole in an otherwise opaque...

A thin-film device that integrates optics and electronics on a single chip to provide a passive-ring resonator gyroscope...

A measurement of the hardness of a material as determined by the penetration depth of a diamond stylus under a specified...

Swept-source optical coherence tomography is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics, particularly in...

Also known as amplification. 1. The increase in a signal that is transmitted from one point to another through an amplifier....

Vision at intermediate levels of luminance between photopic and scotopic vision, where both retinal cones and retinal rods...

A multilayered thin-film device used to modulate transmitted light in integrated photonic circuits.

Designed to observe objects below the surface of water. Not to be confused with hygroscopic.

The angular width of a radiation beam. With respect to a conical beam of light, it is the vertex angle of the cone. The...

In photography, the density gradient across an edge separating light from darkness, a physically measurable quantity that...

The portion of light scattered when traveling through a unit thickness of material.

A fiber splice accomplished by fixtures or materials, rather than by thermal fusion. Index matching material may be applied...

Quantum confinement refers to the phenomenon in quantum mechanics where the motion of charge carriers, such as electrons or...

Electronic circuit capable of distinguishing the pulses emitted by separate counters in a given time phase and determining...

A blur circle refers to the out-of-focus region in an image captured by an optical system. When an object in a scene is not...

A device that provides means for accurately moving minuscule tools over the surface of a microscopic object. The motion...

A prism made up of two air-spaced components. It has the ability to revert, and not invert, an image, and can be used in...

The formation of microimages for microreduction. The technique is used, for example, in the production of precision reticles...

Devices in which the lasing medium is a vapor of metal atoms or ions, sometimes mixed with another gas. Metal vapor lasers...

A nonradiative transition refers to a process in which an electron or an atom undergoes a change in its energy state without...

An exciton is a quasiparticle that represents the bound state of an electron and a hole in a solid-state material, typically...

A term denoting the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field associated with an electromagnetic wave when describing...

The formula that gives the wavelength of maximum spectral radiant emittance of a perfect blackbody: λmax =...

A linear positioning stage, also known as a linear stage or translation stage, is a precision mechanical device used to...

A projector designed to give each of the observer's eyes its own disparate image.

A pixel-based computer graphics system that simulates the tools of an artist.

Any systemic process that ultimately reassembles all the system's components into their initial alignment, or an arrangement...

A device for which the output electric field is linearly proportional to the input electric field, and no new wavelengths or...

The optical phenomenon that causes relative motion between two objects when the eyepoint is moved laterally. When parallax...

A mounting used for large concave gratings, whereby the slit, grating and plate holder lie in the Rowland circle, and the...

A surveying device used to measure vertical displacement of target centers of scale lines from a horizontal plane generated...

A device used to accelerate the electrons in a free-electron laser by channeling microwave energy into waveguide cavity...

An image converter that produces a visible image based on the infrared emittance of the object. The infrared energy is...

A monolithic device containing both photonic and electronic sources, detectors, modulators, etc., on a single semiconductor...

A technique for depositing a material coating on metal, ceramic, semiconductor or polymer substrates. The interaction of...

Polarization refers to the orientation of oscillations in a transverse wave, such as light waves, radio waves, or other...

A confocal resonator, also known as a confocal cavity or confocal laser resonator, is a type of optical resonator...

The term light field refers to the spatial distribution of light rays traveling in all directions through a given space. It...

1. The SI unit of length equal to 10-6 m. Also called micron. 2. A screw thread device used to make accurate physical linear...

A single positive lens or group of lenses used in a projection system to collect light from a source and cause it to...

High dynamic range (HDR) refers to a technology that allows for a broader and more dynamic range of luminosity in visual...

A photofluorescent compound that, when used with a scintillating substance, absorbs photons and emits related photons having...

A lamp that emits light when an electric current passes through a resistant metallic wire situated in a vacuum tube.

In colorimetry, the phenomenon in which spectrally different radiations produce the same color sensation for a given...

The color process that is used to form positive color cine films by dye transfer or imbibition, based on the use of separate...

1. Generally, an emulsion mask having a clean annular region in an otherwise opaque region. It is designed to eliminate...

A laser device intended for crushing urinary tract stones so they can be flushed from the body. Light is introduced via...

Surface analysis by means of photon induced electron emission. PEM methods provide high lateral resolution of the observed...

An arranged series of coils, magnets or electromagnets disposed in such a way that the resulting magnetic fields generate a...

A combination of a polarizer and an analyzer that is used to detect birefringence or rotation of the plane of polarization...

In a solid-state laser, the material (Nd:YAG, Nd:glass, ruby) in which lasing action takes place.

A fiber optic cable assembly refers to a complete unit consisting of optical fibers, connectors, protective jackets, and...

An instrument in which an image of the sun is scanned by the entrance slit of a monochromator, the exit slit simultaneously...

Radiation used to excite an optical or laser material to a higher energy level. See optical pumping.

The transmission of a color photograph by separating the colors into varying intensities of red, blue and green, and then...

1. The decrease of the absorption (or gain) coefficient of a medium near some transition frequency when the power of the...

The intermolecular attraction between two surfaces, as between a substrate and a coating; it is an important factor in the...

Three proportional coefficients labeled Am, Bmn, and Bnm, that respectively characterize the rate of spontaneous emission,...

A shallow, fine-pitch diffraction grating having a precise dielectric overcoating that experimentally has absorbed...

Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) is a precision optics polishing technique used for shaping and finishing optical surfaces...

In microscopy, a calibrated scale on a slide that may be viewed to determine the exact magnification factor of the...

A dichroic coating, also known as a dichroic filter or dichroic mirror, is an optical coating designed to selectively...

A device with a limited number of possible output values (sometimes able to be selected) that can translate an incoming...

A device that combines electronic and optical techniques to form a monitored infrared signal between 1 and 14 µm. It...

A furnace, generally electrically heated, with a control system capable of following a cam by which the temperature can be...

Photonic crystals are artificial structures or materials designed to manipulate and control the flow of light in a manner...

A scanning process in which the greatest amount of radiation determines part of a spiral motion rotating in one direction.

A state in which an image is distorted by an optical system.

Micro-LED (micro-light-emitting diode) refers to a technology that involves the use of very small light-emitting diodes to...

Any crystalline material whose length is much less than its measured diameter.

A V-shaped channel pressed or etched into a substrate, in which, for example, optical fibers may be placed to create an...

An instrument for measuring the vertical angle of an object. It usually contains an accurately made protractor, a sensitive...

A type of piezoelectric translator that uses two thin strips of piezoelectric material, one expanding while the other...

In a pulsed laser, the pulse energy in joules times the repetition rate in hertz.

A nondestructive test, also referred to as LASAT, that uses a high-energy laser pulse that is targeted on an adhesively...

An instrument designed to calculate the amplitude and phase of the different harmonic elements of a radiation wave utilizing...

The amount of energy required to raise the energy level of an atom; a necessity if the atom is to radiate energy. High...

The magnetic flux that, linking a circuit of one turn, produces in it an electromotive force of one volt as it is reduced to...

A waveform that can oscillate along the length of the laser cavity.

End-fire coupling refers to a method of coupling energy into or out of a waveguide, transmission line, or antenna, where the...

Consists of a pair of radio telescopes concentrated on a single celestial object. This technique creates a single radio...

Laser-powered telephone device for analog communications that employs a vibrating plastic membrane as a transmitter to...

Optical surface damage due to abrasive rubbing. Abrasion damage affects are less than the thickness of the optical coating...

Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is an international standard for medical imaging created by both the...

In optics, an octave typically refers to a range of frequencies or wavelengths that spans a factor of 2. In other words,...

A laser-pumped crystal with nonlinear optical properties inside of an optical resonator in which the output generates...

Optical elements that use diffraction to control wavefronts. Diffractive optical elements include diffraction gratings,...

A thermionic tube that has a velocity-modulated electron stream and that may be used as a microwave amplifier or oscillator.

The ability of a machine to perform certain complex functions normally associated with human intelligence, such as judgment,...

Method for studying absorption coefficients of low-loss materials, in which a sample is allowed to come to thermal...

A piece of uniform birefringent material placed at a 45° angle to the plane of polarization in a polarizing microscope...

A thin-film photoconductive cell that is sensitive to the infrared region. The photosensitive material of the cell is...

A near-infrared (NIR) camera is an imaging device designed to capture images in the near-infrared region of the...

Capable of being penetrated by some form of radiation.

A laser rangefinder is a device that uses laser technology to measure the distance between the device and a target. It...

The process of microphotography that involves the reduction of the original at a ratio greater than 100 to 1. The process is...

Any integrated circuit that also makes use of one or more discrete components; frequently used to describe circuits that...

In a diode laser, a mode in the plane of the active layer that is perpendicular to the direction of the emitted beam.

A Peltier cooler, also known as a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) or thermoelectric module, is a solid-state device that uses...

A pathogen is a biological agent, such as a virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoan, or parasite, that causes disease in its...

A mirror used to manipulate the beam in a laser system.

A 30-60-90° spectrograph prism that is coated on the surface opposite the 60° angle with a reflecting film.

An instrument consisting of a high-voltage vacuum tube used to form hard x-rays or high-speed ion beams. By partitioning the...

The material that has the lowest possible constant melting point of any possible combination of the same components.

Continuous wave (CW) refers to a type of signal or transmission where the signal is constant and does not vary with time. In...

Low Earth orbit (LEO) refers to a region in space that is relatively close to Earth's surface, typically characterized by...

The use of a specialized optical microscope designed to provide a more three-dimensional view of a sample. Stereomicroscopy...

Liquid marble refers to a unique form of microscale liquid encapsulation, where small droplets of liquid are coated with a...

Rare earth dopants refer to elements from the lanthanide series, also known as rare earth elements, that are intentionally...

The deviation from the ideal case where a circular variable filter is located at a given wavelength along a radial line (or...

A type of pyroelectric detector with favorable qualities of linearity, sensitivity and spectral responsivity used in FTIR...

An infrared light-emitting diode (IR LED) is a semiconductor device that emits infrared light when an electric current...

The use of head-mounted displays and body-operated remote actuators to control distant machinery. Provides a virtual...

An optical instrument used to isolate a narrow bandwidth of optical radiation using a diffraction grating as the dispersive...

Process of analysis in which the analyte substance is distributed in a matrix before laser desorption. This method avoids...

A means of adjusting the sharpness of an image automatically, with a sensor for estimating distance or contrast and a drive...

The laser pumping that exhibits an advantage over longitudinal pumping in that the threshold pump power density can be...

Quantum sensing refers to a class of sensing technologies that leverage principles from quantum mechanics to enhance the...

A composite derived from aluminum alloy powder and silicon carbide, used as an optical substrate in air- and spacecraft...

A microlens array is a grid-like structure composed of numerous small lenses, typically arranged in a regular pattern. Each...

An astronomical mirror, also known as a telescope mirror or primary mirror, is a key component of a reflecting telescope. It...

The range of materials that, unlike glass, may be used in the infrared. Water-soluble salts, such as cesium iodide, and...

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

A coupling unit that enables more than one transmitter to operate at the same time or separately on the same antenna.

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

The coefficient termed by Callier as the ratio between the density of photographic negatives measured by parallel light and...

Optical character recognition (OCR) is a technology that is used to convert printed or handwritten text into...

An electric or electronic device that regulates the voltage going to a light source as a means of varying the intensity of...

A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the...

1. The branch of physics that deals with the use of electrical energy to create or manipulate light waves, generally by...

A spectroscopic technique that combines the high chemical specificity of Raman scattering and signal sensitivity provided by...

The graph of a curve describing the spectral irradiance of extraterrestrial sunlight.

The nonluminous area that divides the negative glow from the positive column in a Crookes tube under conditions of moderate...

A cable that incorporates multiple fibers, jacketed side by side in a ribbonlike form.

A large table with an accurately designed plane surface used to test other surfaces, or to provide a true surface for...

A collimator having, at one end of a tube, an objective lens, and at the other, a reticle with a pair of spaced lines...

Relative to a light source, the frequency at which the source appears to fluctuate in light intensity half the time and...

An adhesive that permanently sets or hardens at a specified high temperature. Methacrylate is an example of a thermosetting...

Radiation emitted when a quantum mechanical system drops spontaneously from an excited level to a lower level. This...

Photon flow created by imaging of light into a detector array; IPD is the electrical signal used by the image processor in a...

A photographic process using x-ray radiation or the g-rays of radioactive materials.

A technique used for noncontact inspection of semiconductor wafers. The material is illuminated by an excitation source that...

In computer graphics, the point on the display screen where the electron beam is located before the display instruction is...

A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance, which is a phenomenon that occurs when an external force or...

The ability of the instrument to separate wavelengths that are close together, numerically equal to the ratio of the shorter...

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that belongs to the powder bed...

A semiconductor material in which the dopants create holes as the majority charge carrier. It is formed by doping with...

A special form of microscope that utilizes interference for observing and measuring the phase and optical thickness in...

Rate at which an image on a computer screen is redrawn (usually 50 or 60 Hz) to prevent flicker caused by the decay of the...

An image-forming instrument in which a strong electrostatic field causes cold emission of electrons from a sharply rounded...

A factor of an equation of the Faraday effect, which is the rotation of the plane of light polarization by transparent...

The approximate dimension of the refractive-index correlation length in a given medium.

The maximum distance at which the stereoscopic effect may be observed. With respect to the unaided human eye, it has been...

1. To influence to a single direction. 2. Voltage that is applied to a solid-state device.

1. A group of optical fibers that are fused and then treated to produce a vacuum-tight optical fiber cone or plate. 2. An...

In hybrid or monolithic integrated circuits, the laser ablation of a portion of resistor material to achieve the design...

A CCD device for sensing longer wavelengths, such as NIR and IR, that has a deeper depletion region than would be necessary...

A material often used in the construction of optical instruments because of its low coefficient of thermal expansion (0.9 x...

Any source that emits radiation of wavelengths between 100 and 300 nm. Instruments used to study these sources must be...

A state in which the human eye has very little or no power of accommodation. A common and normal condition in the eyes of...

The process of linking optical fiber end to end.

Optical design software refers to specialized computer programs used by optical engineers, physicists, and designers to...

A type of mirage that creates a distorted vertical image of relatively flat objects so that they appear as mountains,...

An accelerator at the Argonne National Laboratory, providing powerful x-ray beams for materials research applications.

Opsins are a group of light-sensitive proteins found primarily in the retinas of vertebrate and invertebrate eyes, as well...

Amplification; the result of the excess of stimulated radiation over absorbed radiation.

1. The additive process whereby the amplitudes of two or more overlapping waves are systematically attenuated and...

Gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) is a semiconductor alloy composed of gallium (Ga), arsenic (As), and phosphorus (P). It...

A crystalline semiconductor material that transmits in the infrared.

A cylindrical lens that may be rotated to distort a bundle of light originating at a point source, to form a line image.

An opaque projector is a device used for enlarging and projecting images from opaque objects such as printed pages,...

A network interface card (NIC), also known as a network adapter or LAN adapter, is a hardware component that allows...

Plates of glass containing as many heavy metal oxides as can be dissolved in the glass without causing devitrification. The...

An instrument used to print an optical image on a specially treated paper. Light and dark portions of the original image are...

A system having a photoelectric detector for the measurement of three quantities related by linear combination to...

Observed phenomenon of a small developed image with higher density than a larger image because of variation in photographic...

Counter propagating beams imaged along the same path in order to detect rotation. Precise rotation is measured through...

Fused quartz and silica are closely related materials, both composed primarily of silicon dioxide (SiO2), but they are...

Computer vision enables computers to interpret and make decisions based on visual data, such as images and videos. It...

Any optical device that utilizes diffraction in an image-forming capability. Familiar diffractive lenses are zone plates,...

A discontinuous burst of laser light generated by timing or "gating'' a continuous-wave laser.

A neutral-colored gelatin wedge, cast between glass plates, that is used as an intensity scale in certain types of...

An array of refractive microlenses that are round, square and hexagonal and as small as 15 µm. They are used for...

Virtual histology refers to the use of digital technology and computational methods to simulate or recreate histological...

Uniform measure of time based on dynamics law and calculated according to planetary orbital paths; specifically, Earth's...

A set of mirrors mounted on solenoids to move them into and out of the path of a laser beam, making it possible for multiple...

Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast microscopy, is an optical...

The line from a spark or other very hot source that has greater intensity than that of a line produced by an arc or flame...

The process in which the normal rate of fluorescent emission from a substance is enhanced by virtue of the optical gain of...

A type of electroluminescent display that will record and maintain an irradiated image on its phosphor screen, provided a DC...

The recording of the information contained in a modulated electron beam onto photographic or silicon resin-coated materials....

In the fabrication of an optical fiber, a layer that can be used to create a boundary against OH-ion diffusion into the core.

An instrument for determining the temperature of a hot object by examining the color spectrum of the visible light it gives...

A fiber optic preform is a cylindrical glass rod or tube used as the starting material for manufacturing optical fibers. It...

1. An undulation or vibration; a form of movement by which all radiant energy of the electromagnetic spectrum is estimated...

A series of permanent holograms in dichromated gelatin formed by opening total page-composer apertures and setting a point...

A standard source of high-charge-state ions for accelerators that has an external magnetic field oriented perpendicularly to...

A strong, heat-resistant glass that contains a minimum of 5 percent boric oxide.

Glass that has been specially treated so that it will not shatter when exposed to high temperatures followed by immediate...

A layer of material applied to a coated surface to protect it from physical or chemical action.

A contraction of "excited dimer." The term refers to an excited species made by combination of two identical atoms...

The ability of a camera to compensate in cases where a subject with a large amount of background light would otherwise be...

The specification of allowable flaws in a surface by comparison to reference standards of quality. Two graded sets of...

A rigid medium, generally a polycarbonate substrate coated with a reflective aluminum layer, that stores information (such...

A band of light that appears along the outer edge of a transparent material under microscopic investigation and that moves...

A pair of waveguides with axes normal to the plane and that guide uniform cylindrical waves.

A thermosetting material used in the jacket of fiber optic cables.

A representation of the shape of a surface, including any roughness or other irregularities. The profile can be generated by...

A process used to detect minute gravitational fields and to display images from objects by means of radiated gravitational...

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an analytical technique that combines the principles of Raman spectroscopy...

A type of matched filter that responds only to the phase of incoming light; the output has a much greater intensity than...

In microscopy, the chamber that is contained on a microscope slide to hold a certain amount of fluid. It is calibrated...

Factor that relates the pulse spread occurring in a graded-index fiber to that of an equivalent step-index fiber having an...

A system incorporated into fiber optic data communications characterized by several spatially distributed terminals that are...

A process, either naturally occurring or mechanically induced, whereby water is changed from its liquid state into a vapor.

A solid-state semiconducting structure (basically one of the bolometers) that changes electrical resistance with...

A term used to describe a nondirectionally diffusing surface that, when illuminated, appears equally bright from all angles....

In the context of electronics and optics, an isolator refers to a device that allows the transmission of signals in one...

A device that produces an interferogram that can be directly related to the temperature gradient and thereby provides a...

Any organic substance, that when dissolved in appropriate liquid based solvents will absorb and emit electromagnetic...

The two points on the principal axis of a mirror or lens so positioned that light emitted from either point will be focused...

A microscope to which a beamsplitter and illuminated reticle have been added that is used to measure contact lenses.

An instrument similar to the spectroheliograph, but having a scanning method that is performed by a pair of rapidly...

A fiber optic sensor is a device that uses optical fibers to detect and measure physical, chemical, biological, or...

A nonmagnetic instrument utilizing an electrofocus and deflection tube with a photocathode for imaging purposes. The optical...

Any arrangement of a bundle of optical fibers that alters the shape of the image. For example, by systematic regulation of...

Primary image memory that is built into a digital camera and stores the digital images generated by the camera's image...

A diode with a semiconducting material, such as germanium or silicon, for one electrode, and a fine wire "whisker''...

Referring to compound semiconductor materials combining one element with two valence electrons and one or more with six....

A term used to denote a difference in magnification along mutually perpendicular meridians. Anamorphic systems are basically...

Laser-mediated gene transfer refers to a technique in molecular biology and genetic engineering that utilizes lasers to...

Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) is an advanced imaging technique that provides information about the lifetime of...

A spectrograph used to detect radiation in the range of the ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. It is made up of...

Ablation applied to polymers and chemical solids. Process of material removal that minimizes edge damage but will not heat...

Method of preserving the measured color value and color information as it is translated from differing devices. For example...

A type of microscope that uses radiation in the infrared region to illuminate objects that are opaque to visible radiation....

Category inclusive of all radiation that is incited electronically, except laser radiation, as a function of the application...

The recording of patterns by the production and use of latent electrostatic charge patterns. See electrostatic process.

A polished plano-parallel plate that is contacted to an unpolished glass surface to permit see-through analysis of the...

1. Voltage at which a PN junction begins to pass a current. 2. In a solid-state lamp, the voltage at which light is first...

A neuromorphic vision sensor is a type of imaging device designed to mimic the structure and functioning of the human visual...

A polarizer that consists of dichroic polarizing material embedded in a plastic sheet, and that transmits light that is...

In optical fiber, sharp but microscopic curvatures that create local axial displacements of a few microns and spatial...

A polarizing prism consisting of two calcite prisms cemented such that they deviate the two emerging beams (which are...

A piezoelectric translator that moves up and down a spindle like a caterpillar. It clamps itself at one end, expands, clamps...

The entrance slit, also known simply as the slit, is an essential component in optical instruments such as spectrometers and...

Phototoxicity refers to the harmful effects caused by exposure to light, particularly intense or ultraviolet (UV) light, on...

In the field of optics and imaging, a mesoscope refers to an optical instrument that is designed to observe and capture...

In an optical system with a series of lenses, images formed prior to the final focal plane.

The integration of plastic materials into optical applications. When the materials are refined into lenses, prisms and...

Also known as real holographic image. The indistinct, highly distorted image produced on the side of the hologram closest to...

A line-scan camera, also known as a line-scan image sensor or linear array camera, is a type of digital camera designed to...

A numerical value representing the degree of contrast in a television picture: the exponent of the power law used to...

In a camera, the focusing of an image on the screen located at the camera's film plane. Once the image is in complete focus,...

An instrument for detecting and analyzing repetitive signals. Using a fixed time delay or "gate," the input signal...

Modification of a system to provide for a linear transfer characteristic from an input to an output device. A circuit for...

Epitaxial refers to the growth of a crystalline layer on a crystalline substrate in such a way that the orientation of the...

Also known as the Bragg spectrometer. A system used for the x-ray analysis of crystal structure. In the instrument, a...

A CMOS camera refers to an imaging device that employs a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor to...

A thermoplastic or thermosetting material used to hold an object fixed and keep it from deterioration. In microcircuitry,...

Any isolated wave that propagates without dispersion of energy. Specifically to photonics, an ultrashort pulse of laser...

An antireflection coating (AR coating) is a thin film or coating applied to optical surfaces, such as lenses or windows, to...

Optical glass refers to a type of glass specifically engineered and manufactured for use in optical components and systems,...

A method of producing disks for erasable optical data storage. Information is recorded by a laser beam that generates pits...

The Golgi staining technique (also called the black reaction) makes it possible to look at the nervous system by rendering...

A material that can rotate the polarization of light that passes through it. An optically active material exhibits different...

Machine vision lighting refers to the use of specific lighting techniques and equipment in the field of machine vision,...

The subtractive imbibing process of transferring color prints on paper whereby the dyes from three separately prepared...

A highly stable heavy-metal fluoride glass made from the fluorides of zirconium, barium, lanthanum, aluminum and sodium.

Able to rotate the plane of polarization of a transmitted, plane-polarized light beam clockwise as seen by a viewer looking...

Visible laser radiation, often optically expanded and collimated, used to induced temporary blindness from within a walking...

A method of producing high-quality plastic optics in large volumes by injecting the heated, liquified plastic at high...

A single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is a specialized type of photodetector designed to detect extremely weak optical...

The application of coherent wavefront techniques to the determination of the physical state of a system without appreciably...

A low-power telescope placed at the eyepiece of an optical system to increase overall magnification. Most often used to...

A laser effect used especially for laser light shows. Lumia are created by placing a distorting medium such as rippled glass...

A small instrument containing a picture support and a pair of magnifying lenses so arranged that the left eye sees only the...

Superresolution refers to the enhancement or improvement of the spatial resolution beyond the conventional limits imposed by...

Relative to radiation wavelength, the law that states that the wavelength of luminescence stimulated by radiation always...

Participates in a reaction only in the presence of light and radiant energy. Besides 3D printing, photoreactive agents also...

Also called coating jig allowance. That margin on an optical component that is outside the clear aperture for use in holding...

The spectrum produced by the interference of light provided that the source used to create the interference has a broad...

The study of highly ionized gases. Many phenomena not exhibited by uncharged gases are associated with plasma physics.

A fluorophore is a molecule or a portion of a molecule that has the ability to emit light upon excitation by an external...

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is a nonlinear optical process that occurs when two photons with the same frequency combine...

The process of mapping the infrared emittance of an area through the use of an infrared detector and related scanning...

The color of an object when it is illuminated by a nonisophotic source.

Schott Glass Technologies' trade name for a glass-ceramic material with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion.

A stationary noise that occurs for visible light photodetection when a steady light source, such as a heterodyne reference...

Etaloning is an optical phenomenon that occurs in imaging systems, particularly in devices such as spectrometers,...

Electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by an electron as it is accelerated or decelerated while moving through the...

Optoacoustic, or photoacoustic, refers to a phenomenon and related techniques that involve the generation of acoustic waves...

A positioning slide mechanism with two rows of alternately crisscrossed cylindrical rollers.

The term "embedded laser" typically refers to a laser device that is integrated or embedded into a larger system or...

In astronomy, the relative brightness of a celestial body. Originally a scale from 1 to 6, where 1 represented the brightest...

1. The process of wearing down the surface of a softer material by rubbing it under pressure against the surface of a harder...

A line of the Raman spectrum that fulfills Stokes' law because it possesses a wavelength that is greater than the radiation...

The term reflective is an adjective that describes the ability of a surface or material to reflect light or other forms of...

Optical materials refer to substances or compounds specifically chosen for their optical properties and used in the...

A computer-generated, phase-and-amplitude, off-axis hologram made by a multi-exposure technique that uses three computer...

A circular lamp or bundles of optical fibers placed around the perimeter of an objective lens to illuminate the object field...

An optical interference coating, vacuum-deposited on a circular substrate, whose transmission characteristics may be varied...

An avalanche photodiode in which the light-absorbing area is a low-bandgap material and the PN junction is placed in an area...

In image processing, the location of edges by employing templates that respond to the first or second derivative of...

Optical noise refers to undesirable fluctuations or disturbances in an optical signal that can affect the quality or...

A system of elements which rotates the optical image with respect to the optical axis by a factor of pi radians.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a widely used molecular biology technique used to amplify a specific segment of DNA...

Hydrophobic is a term used to describe substances or materials that repel or do not readily interact with water. The word...

An eyepiece or magnifier capable of covering a field of view that is greater than 50°.

A scale located on the eyepiece focusing screw and used to measure the amount of defocusing of the eyepiece in diopters. The...

Coating carried out in a sealed chamber evacuated by a mechanical pump in series with an oil diffusion pump to a pressure...

A statistical means of characterizing the failure of a fiber or device as related to strain or time. Results are plotted on...

Spectroscopy characterized by the Mossbauer effect - recoilless emission and absorption of nuclear gamma radiation- which...

Sets of paired lines carefully designed to give the most accurate pointing possible for various lengths of sight.

A microscope equipped with a polarizer, an analyzer and a Bertrand lens to focus on the upper focal plane of the objective....

Measures the refractive indices axially from the fiber profile. Microscopy technique provides an interferogram with high...

A 3D profile sensor, also known as a 3D profiling sensor or 3D depth sensor, is a technology that is used to capture and...

A structure consisting of a thin film of liquid crystal sandwiched between light-polarizing filters that have received a...

A method used to detect internal or residual microstresses in a material by using a laser beam to locate changes in...

The method of determining the energy distribution of high-speed charged particles by the luminous effect formed when the...

The use of computer systems for monitoring and controlling industrial production.

The indistinct, less luminous portion lying immediately outside an electric arc whose spectrum often differs from that of...

A cathode-ray tube that either splits an electron beam from one source or uses beams from two sources to produce two beams,...

An angle formed by the lines of sight of both eyes when focusing on an object. Also, the rate at which a ray approaches the...

An apparatus, designed for use with a camera, that is used to rapidly open the path from lens to film, to maintain the...

A breakout cable, also known as a fan-out cable or breakout assembly, is a type of cable that combines multiple individual...

A light source that does not fluctuate despite temperature changes.

In dry etching, a method of characterizing the composition of solid materials such as metal. Atoms in the OES technique are...

Electromagnetic radiation with frequencies between 300 GHz and 10 THz, and existing between regions of the electromagnetic...

1. A constituent part. It may consist of two or more parts cemented together, or with near and approximately matching...

The use of light to initiate the lasing process. See optical pumping.

An optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) is a specialized instrument used in optical fiber communications to characterize...

A flexible display refers to a type of electronic visual display that is designed to be bendable, foldable, or rollable,...

An interference microscope that uses a light beam originating from a low-coherence light source. The sample is placed in one...

The angular relation between two light rays that originated at the same object point. Sometimes used to indicate the angle...

A still camera with a shutter capable of opening for a time as short as a fraction of a microsecond. An electronically...

A flanged or plain ring with a restricted aperture, located in an optical system at any of several points, that cuts off...

The product of Avogadro's constant and the electrical charge of an electron; thus, the electrical charge carried by 1 gmol...

An edge-emitting light-emitting diode is a type of LED structure where light emission occurs primarily along the edge of the...

A nonlinear crystal used to modulate a polarized beam of light by means of the Pockels effect. A Pockels cell is used as a...

The adjustable membrane located just in front of the crystalline lens within the eye. The iris gives the eye its color. See...

Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) is a technique used in photon counting applications, particularly in the...

Similar to LASCR, except that all four regions are available.

The field of photography concerned with the recording of subjects beneath the water with a watertight, water-resistant...

A collector for photovoltaic power generation that consists of a thin plate that strongly absorbs sunlight striking its...

Any testing method for materials and components that does not damage or destroy the test sample. Some of the methods used...

A standard of luminous intensity evaluated as the luminous intensity of 1 cm2 of a blackbody at the melting point of...

Phase distortion refers to a change in the phase relationships between different frequency components of a signal. In the...

The application of observed operational processes of sophisticated living organisms to mechanical and electrical systems in...

Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly...

Popular process for silicon and polycrystalline production that consists of an alteration of the original state of a...

The multiple beam form of Brewster's fringes formed when the two plane-parallel plates have high-reflecting surfaces.

Light diffusion refers to the process by which light is scattered or spread out in various directions as it interacts with a...

A device that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert ultrasonic sound waves, transmitted through a subject, into a voltage...

A filter that creates spherical aberration resulting in an image with a soft outline.

An organizational method used in optical design computer programs. The technique produces one number (merit function) to...

In polarization-preserving optical fibers, the element used to induce birefringence. The SAP is highly doped to provide a...

1. The negative electrode of a device in an electrical circuit. 2. The positive electrode of a primary cell or storage...

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

A unit of energy absorbed from ionizing radiation, equal to 100 ergs per gram of irradiated material.

A quarter- or half-wave retarder made from two plates of quartz, mica or polymer with their fast axes crossed; the...

One or more thin-film layers of optical material deposited on a mirror blank/substrate in order to enhance the way that...

Typically represented by the Greek letter μ, magnetic permeability is the measure of a material's ability to generate and...

Radiography using the emission of x-rays to form an image of the structure penetrated by the radiation.

A Laurent polarimeter is an instrument used in optics for measuring the rotation of plane-polarized light caused by...

The least space between two parallel lines that can be discriminated as a gap to the human eye. It is measured in terms of...

A crystalline-quartz plate designed according to specifications but having its two major faces parallel.

A laser in which the transition involved in stimulated emission of radiation takes place between two levels of an ionized...

A plane in which an image is formed. A real image formed by a positive lens would be visible upon a screen located in this...

The plot that expresses a reaction rate vs. the reciprocal of absolute temperature. Often used to describe the thermal...

An imaging device analogous to a drum scanner, but operating at greater speeds; it uses a row of sensors to traverse an...

Plasmonics is a field of science and technology that focuses on the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and free...

With respect to a unit cell in a crystal structure, the property defining an atom located at the center of each face.

A sensor module used in advanced pattern recognition systems, containing signal-processing integrated circuits stacked and...

A film applied to a coated or uncoated optical surface primarily for protecting this surface from mechanical abrasion, from...

Any of the constants that relate the tendency of the director to remain parallel to restoring torques throughout the media....

Photoresist is a light-sensitive material used in photolithography processes, particularly in the fabrication of...

FMCW lidar stands for frequency-modulated continuous wave lidar. It is a type of lidar (light detection and ranging)...

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) refers to a set of safety features and technologies designed to assist drivers in...

A method of measuring microbending losses in optical fiber by sandwiching a length of fiber between two parallel plates,...

The concept of the de Broglie wavelength exploits the wave-particle duality of quantum physics by associating all matter (of...

Referred to as SWCNTs, these cylindrical nanostructures composed of a folded sheet of graphene can be used as near-infrared...

The decrease in effect in developable density on a photographic plate formed by a second exposure to radiation having a...

The electric field associated with an electromagnetic wave and thus with a lightwave. The electric vector specifies the...

The optical Fourier transform is a mathematical operation applied to optical signals that involves transforming a spatial...

A well plate, also known as a microplate or microtiter plate, is a flat plate with multiple small wells or depressions...

A weight reducing method whereby material from the rear of a reflector is removed leaving a pattern of ribs normal to the...

An electromagnetic device used to separate isotopes of elements based on their respective masses.

Nanoparticle photonic resonator absorption microscopy is a microscopy technique that combines the principles of photonic...

A moving group of fluid-suspended biological species directed through separate channels by which the population is isolated....

An image-enhancement technique in which each pixel is subjected to a mathematical operation that groups it with its nearest...

A method of cleaning and drying coated optical components. The cooled parts are placed in a container above a boiling...

A device that is designed to automatically turn electric lamps on and off in a rapidly repeating sequence. The device may...

The central peak (including everything interior to the first zero or dark ring) of the focal diffraction pattern of a...

A multifaceted holographic disc that is rotated by a motor to deflect incident light to a scanning system's lens.

A variation from standard physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating techniques, magnetron sputtering is a plasma coating...

A device that prevents electrons from a saturated pixel in a CCD imaging device from spilling into an adjacent pixel. The...

Plasmon ion-assisted deposition (PIAD) is a technique used in thin-film deposition processes, particularly in the production...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics and biomedical research to obtain...

Also referred to as the axial ray (or a-ray), a marginal ray originates from the axial point of the object and passes...

A transducer is a device or component that converts one form of energy into another. It is commonly used in various fields,...

A near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer is an analytical instrument used to measure the absorption, transmission, or reflection...

A valve that serves to release air into an evacuated system.

A microbubble resonator is a device used in photonics and optical physics for the precise manipulation of light waves. It...

Mie scattering, named after the German physicist Gustav Mie, refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (such as...

The movement of particulate material by flowing gas or liquid.

For a particular mode, the reciprocal of the rate of change of the phase constant with respect to angular frequency.

Time-lapse optical coherence tomography (OCT) refers to a medical imaging technique that captures a series of sequential OCT...

Camera Link HS (high speed) is a standard developed for high-speed digital data transmission in machine vision and...

The characteristics of a material that determine its tendency to flow.

An autocollimator is an optical instrument used for measuring small angular deviations with high precision. It operates on...

In an image, the orientation and magnitude of the rate of change in intensity at any point.

Rolling shutter artifacts are distortions or visual anomalies that can occur in images or videos captured by cameras with...

A unit of speed of transmission or receipt of a signal, roughly equal to bits per second; common baud rates are 300, 1200,...

The probability that an atom in one state will move spontaneously to a lower state within a given unit of time.

CoaXPress (CoaXPress or CXP) is a standardized digital interface and communication protocol used primarily in machine vision...

A device, also called a fluorescence lifetime instrument, that measures decay curves of fluorescing samples. It generally...

A powerful and flexible machine-learning approach that can be used in machine vision to help solve difficult problems....

A PIN photodiode is a type of photodetector or semiconductor device used to convert light signals into electrical signals....

An eyepiece similar to the Huygenian eyepiece, but having an eye lens that is a cemented doublet and that provides more...

A capacitor that uses glass as its dielectric material.

An OLED display that has an integrated electronic backplane as its substrate. Active-matrix OLED displays use at least two...

The process of binding or attaching larger metal sheets by laser welding. The effect is generated by higher power densities...

The use of a material's emissivity to measure absorption. It is useful as an absorption loss measurement technique, since at...

A crystalline material with a high electro-optic coefficient, capable of operating at short wavelengths, with applications...

Any material of a macromolecular nature that can stretch at room temperature to more than twice its length and return to...

An alphanumeric display formed by a layer of liquid crystal material sandwiched between two sheets of glass; a transparent...

The use of a short-duration electron beam to record high-speed events that occur in microscopic objects made of materials...

Optical tweezers refer to a scientific instrument that uses the pressure of laser light to trap and manipulate microscopic...

Directional and coherent radiation pulses that result from an ensemble of coherently prepared states in an optical medium.

A controlled motion system that may use a telescope, camera or antenna to follow accurately a satellite, missile, vehicle or...

Chalcogenide refers to a class of compounds containing elements from group 16 of the periodic table, which includes sulfur...

A flat plate having its surface formed into a random pattern by abrasives. Radiation wavelengths that are longer than the...

Spherical aberration is an optical aberration that occurs when light rays passing through a lens or curved optical surface...

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses...

A technique for determining the nonlinear optical properties of a sample material by moving the sample through a focused...

The Kerr effect, named after the physicist John Kerr who first observed it in 1875, is a nonlinear optical phenomenon where...

In an optical fiber or waveguide communications system, an optoelectronic device or module that receives an optical signal,...

A miniature projecting device designed to enhance and reproduce the image generated by a smaller image-forming instrument....

An infrared detector is a device that is used to detect and measure infrared radiation, which lies beyond the visible...

A unit of measurement of luminous intensity based on a physical standard, a set of calibrated carbon filament lamps. The old...

A quantum well is a structure in quantum mechanics that confines particles, such as electrons or holes, in one spatial...

Spectral repeatability refers to the consistency and reproducibility of spectral measurements across multiple trials or...

1. A polariscope consisting of a Savart plate and a tourmaline plate analyzer, and used to produce parallel color fringes by...

A stroboscopelike apparatus that uses a copper vapor laser to illuminate an object for very short time periods (about 30 ns).

Microscopy is a scientific technique that involves the use of microscopes to observe and study objects that are too small to...

A refrigeration method based on the Peltier effect. When an electric current passes through a thermocouple of two dissimilar...

Radiation that is emitted by a source outside the Earth and its atmosphere.

An ophthalmic instrument used to measure the magnitude and direction of the maximum and minimum powers of a spectacle lens,...

In digital image processing, a subcategory of frame processing that treats each pixel in terms of its relationship to...

Also known as ground level. The lowest energy level of an atom or atomic system. A material in the ground state is not...

A fiber optic connector or splice that mates two multifiber cables, optically aligning all of the individual fibers...

A small card (10 x 15 cm) that has been treated with a photographic emulsion to record and store the microimages of...

The region at the PN junction in a semiconductor radiation detector where the potential energies of the two materials create...

A spectrometric instrument that detects radiation simultaneously in multiple channels, sorts it spectrally from the deep...

Optical fiber with a large core, often a step-index fiber; "large'' is at times defined as greater than 85 µm.

Calculates the exponential growth of the least stable spatial frequency in a laser beam, and is the numerical equivalent of...

A prism with curved faces that collimates, reflects and refracts incident light. Often used in the production of...

Imaging materials that generally consist of a polyester base, a transparent electrically conductive layer and an organic...

A material's ability to undergo plastic deformation, specifically elongation, without fracturing.

The technique of producing spectrograms in wavelengths beyond 120 nm by the use of a diffraction grating and a Schumann...

A constant equal to the universal gas constant divided by the Avogadro number. It is approximately equal to 1.38 x 10-23 J/K...

A form of microfiche that has an information reduction ratio that is greater than 100 to 1.

A term for the ring-shaped stop in a phase contrast microscope. The phase annulus limits the amount of light that reaches...

The parallel orientation of the molecular axes of the nematic molecules in a nematic crystal, relative to the electrode...

A solid-state video detector consisting of a single row of light-sensitive semiconductor devices, used in linear-array...

Generation of an acoustical signal by a sample exposed to modulated light.

The photographic recording of a subject that exhibits luminescence only for an extremely short time (10-8 s) after the...

In optics, the double refraction that is produced when stress is applied to a transparent material. Plastics, which are...

In a laser, the voltage necessary to initiate electrical discharge, somewhat higher than that needed to sustain it.

CID, or charge injection device, camera refers to a type of imaging device that utilizes a specific kind of solid-state...

Spectrophotometry in which radiation of two separate wavelengths, usually one in an absorption band and the other not, pass...

The area of optics in which the wave nature of a particle is exploited to carry out very accurate interferometry and other...

The positive ion current created in an electron tube as a result of the collisions between electrons and residual gas...

An electrowetting display (EWD) is a type of electronic display technology that utilizes the principles of electrowetting to...

A cement used to reduce crosstalk in fiber optic bundles or plates.

The lens located at the object end of a microscope tube. A wide range of objectives is available, including simple...

Angular tracking measurement estimated from the properly normalized image second-moment tensor.

In a lens, the square of the radius of its aperture divided by the product of the focal length and the wavelength. It...

A technique that uses a solid-state laser and a detector to determine an object's relative distance to the system. The laser...

A characteristic of optical fiber used to calculate the fiber's ability to maintain polarization. The beat length describes...

A technique for measuring the concentration of any gases. Identical infrared beams are alternately chopped, one passing...

The testing by hypothesizing a likely crystal structure, computing a test x-ray diffraction pattern and comparing this to...

A method of thin-film deposition in which electrons boiled off a heated cathode are used to melt the coating material. If a...

Variations in a signal passing through an optical fiber caused by the effect on the pulse of the fiber's material and mode...

A device that responds to incident light but does not generate light.

The apparent surface of the sun or a star from which light appears to radiate.

With respect to the crystal, the decrease in energy that follows the process whereby the ions, separated from each other by...

A sensitometer having a continuously controlled monochromator to measure spectral sensitivity and contrast of photographic...

A sheet of thin brass, one edge of which has been accurately cut to a known and marked circular radius. It is used to check...

A mechanical or electronic device used to control the amount of time that a light-sensitive material is exposed to radiation.

The substrate upon which a diffraction grating will be ruled. It must be dimensionally stable, and the surface must be...

A salt of formic acid that can be used to enhance the photosensitivity of silver halide crystals.

Usually consists of a set of filters that attenuate specific wavelengths but transmit as much visible radiation as possible.

A type of photoelectric proximity mode sensing incorporating a lens system to focus the light from the emitter in a small,...

A circular optical wedge (prism of small refracting angle) mounted to be rotated in the path of light rays to divert the...

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light...

With respect to color photography, the measurement, at a given wavelength, of the way the color film modulates the radiant...

In digital image processing, a subcategory of frame processing that transforms pixel brightness and contrast through use of...

The properties of certain materials that cause them to have relative permeabilities that exceed unity. This permeability...

That process by which radiation spontaneously emitted by a volume of optical materials is resonantly reabsorbed within the...

Machinery used to grind and finish a component, such as a lens or prism, to a desired precision. Usually such machines carry...

The alignment process that makes the optical axes of two related systems parallel to each other. Also, making the optical...

In a straight line. When applied to a lens, it indicates that images of straight lines formed by the lens are not distorted.

An infrared device used in satellites and rockets to determine a heat horizon for the Earth at altitudes (above 200 miles)...

A device that obliterates the polarization of a polarized beam by reflecting the beam in all directions at right angles to...

A grating that serves to provide higher resolution and dispersion than the average grating, and still has a greater free...

The characteristic of displaying three colors when observed in as many separate directions.

A fiber optic spectrometer is a device used for measuring the spectral content of light. It utilizes optical fibers to...

Refers to a display or screen that is illuminated from behind; the light is transmitted as opposed to reflected.

The standards of MIL-O-13830 set by the US government relative to tolerable surface scratches and other such defects in an...

A solid-state device that acts as a high-speed power switch, and that is activated by incident radiation.

A room that is light-tight, permitting total darkness or illumination with a safelight when working with photosensitive...

When a lens system with a circular aperture is free of aberrations, the image of a point object will appear as a disc of...

In coherent optical communications systems, a laser used at the receiving end to produce a steady wave that is combined with...

An instrument designed to measure the rate of rotation of components, such as shafts.

A surgical device used to deliver laser light. Specifically,contact tips are made with artificially grown sapphire which is...

Envelopes for cathode-ray tubes are made by blowing glass in the same manner as light bulbs. They have a fairly flat end...

The ability of a device to operate without electromagnetically interfering with the operation of nearby equipment and...

In the context of electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, a wafer refers to a thin, flat disk or substrate made of a...

A graduated range of stimuli perceived as having equivalent differences of brightness.

Trade name for a type of borosilicate glass manufactured by Corning Glass Works, noted for its low coefficient of thermal...

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring substances. These...

Luminescence that arises from friction and that usually occurs in crystalline materials.

A CCD device in which a solid-state electron multiplying register has been added to the end of the normal serial register....

The lateral distance between a vertical line drawn through the geometrical center of the distance portion of a multifocal,...

The condition in which two or more energy states are identical.

An assembly of prototype instruments, equipment and/or software designed to perform all the functions of a concept or idea...

1. An optical distance finder that depends on triangulation of two convergent beams on an object from disparate view points....

Attosecond photonics sources refer to devices or systems that generate extremely short pulses of light on the order of...

An optical waveguide that will allow more than one bound mode to propagate.

Injecting a gas (usually nitrogen) with a very low moisture content into the body of an optical instrument to create a...

A short term for latent image intensification, a process much like hypersensitizing in photography, but used after exposure...

A disc, having opaque and transparent sectors or sectors with unlike reflectances, that is rotated at a specific rate to...

Characterizes a substance whose plane of polarization is rotated counterclockwise as the observer looks through the material...

Radioactivity formed by the bombardment of stable elements by either neutrons or high-energy, charged particles under...

A laser that generates a succession of pulses at a high enough repetition rate to appear continuous. The pump source is...

A term for thermoplastic optical materials; that is, those in which the polymer chains remain linear after heating and...

Photoconductive antenna (PCA) is a semiconductor element that generates or detects high-frequency electromagnetic signals....

A departure from ideal paraxial imaging behavior. The distortion of an optical field wavefront as it is propagated through...

A quantum cascade laser (QCL) is a type of semiconductor laser that operates based on the principles of quantum mechanics....

A value used to designate the relative sensitivity of a detector. The higher the D* value, the better the detector.

Raman spectroscopy is a technique used in analytical chemistry and physics to study vibrational, rotational, and other...

An electron microscope that uses a beam of electrons -- accelerated to high energy and focused on the sample -- to scan the...

Metabolic imaging refers to the visualization and quantification of metabolic processes within living organisms, tissues, or...

Nanopositioning refers to the precise and controlled movement or manipulation of objects or components at the nanometer...

A fluorescent screen refers to a phosphorescent or fluorescent-coated surface that emits visible light when exposed to other...

A combination 80-column computer card containing a 35-mm microfilm frame. Reference data can be punched onto the card to...

An instrument devised by Nichols and Hull for use in the measurement of radiation pressure. The device has two small...

An exposure meter that indicates the amount of light reflected from the subject of interest.

I/O stands for input/output. In computing, it refers to the communication between a computer system or program and its...

A diffraction pattern sampling unit composed of a 32-element monolithic silicon photodiode array and a readout unit. The...

Separation of incident laser pulses by several seconds so holographic plates can be changed and sandwiched between the...

A phenomenon in which high optical power, encountering an imperfection in an optical fiber, destroys the fiber's core and...

An optical reflector with the reflective coating applied to the front surface of the substrate. This eliminates the ghost...

Laser surgery refers to a medical procedure in which a laser, or focused beam of light, is used as a precision tool to cut,...

A rapid roughing process for the quick removal of glass, the first step in manufacture of a curved lens surface. It is...

With respect to display systems, a device that uses an independent light source and a control-layer medium, the active...

A device in which slab geometry internally compensates for thermal-optic distortion; the solid host material -- glass or...

A specific gas-filled tube designed to illustrate the luminous effects of discharges through rarefied gases.

A system for automatic industrial process control or measurement, consisting of an optical module for image acquisition, a...

Videography refers to the process of capturing moving images and recording them in a digital format. It involves the use of...

A small mass spectrometer, with a limited mass range, equipped with an analyzer to generate a cycloidal-path beam of the...

A special evacuated camera equipped with means for holding a specimen and bombarding it with a sharply focused beam of...

A photoelectric detector consisting of a glass tube internally coated with a low conductance material. Voltage applied along...

Brightfield refers to a type of microscopy and imaging technique in which the specimen is illuminated with a white light...

A material used in photodynamic therapy that is retained selectively by tumor tissue when injected into the body; it then...

The transmission of data in groups (packets) of information~comma~ each handled as an aggregate.

A solar cell that is lightweight and flexible because of its construction by vacuum deposition of a semiconductor material...

In holography, the beam of light that is directed from the beamsplitter to the recording medium, where it interferes with...

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

Histology is the branch of biology and medicine that involves the study of the microscopic structure of tissues and organs...

Quantum-enhanced metrology refers to the use of quantum mechanics principles and techniques to enhance the precision and...

In fiber optics, the use of a detector to study the range of refractive indices achieved at various wavelengths. This...

A blue diode laser is a type of semiconductor laser that emits light in the blue wavelength range of the electromagnetic...

A vacuum tube in which a magnetic field is superimposed onto the tube's electrical field. When the two fields are aligned,...

Structural surfaces that incorporate an embedded sensor network capable of detecting flaws within the structure.

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that forms at temperatures close to absolute zero. It is named after...

A system that uses infrared detectors and related instrumentation to determine when abnormal amounts of infrared radiation,...

Abbreviated PAI. An imaging modality with a hybrid technique based on the acoustic detection of optical absorption from...

A device designed to concentrate and direct a light source by enclosing the source in it and using a concave reflector to...

Term applied to radiation composed of particles or photons that will not easily penetrate a material because of their low...

In digital data transmission, the representation of a bit by change in amplitude of the outgoing signal. Amplitude shift...

The three lines in the spectrum of cadmium that have the purest radiations and that were first used by Michelson to...

Distortion caused by variations in the rate of change of phase shift with frequency over the signal's necessary bandwidth.

A type of radiation detector that depends on the ionization produced in a gas by the passage of a charged particle through...

An electron tube that employs electromagnetic radiation to produce a visual replica of an image produced on its cathode....

The reduction in longitudinal, lateral and secondary chromatic aberrations in a lens or lens system.

A strip or annulus of glass coated with a semitransparent material such as inconel. The coating thickness, and as a result...

Intense scattering in the region of the liquid-gas critical point. At this point the gas will strongly scatter all light to...

Optical elements that have been coated with one or more layers of dielectric, or metallic material. These coatings serve to...

The incident ray, the normal to the refracting surface at the point of incidence of the ray at the surface, and the...

A photovoltaic cell usually sensitive to infrared radiation. It may have a copper base and a film of cuprous oxide. When it...

Short wavelength infrared (SWIR) refers to the portion of the infrared spectrum that encompasses wavelengths roughly between...

In image processing and machine vision, the rate of change of pixel intensity.

1. In relation to cathode-ray tube displays, errors in the signal's amplitude, phase or both that result in small, rapid...

Condition in which two stimuli appear to match in color to a specified observer, or in which two objects appear to match in...

The term photochemical pertains to chemical processes or reactions that are initiated or influenced by the absorption of...

A statistical analysis of facts obtained when the intensity of x-ray diffraction is calculated at different angles. In this...

Any filter in which the range of frequencies within a chosen radius suffers no attenuation and the range of frequencies...

1. In optics, the ability of a lens system to reproduce the points, lines and surfaces in an object as separate entities in...

Germanium crystal refers to a crystalline form of the element germanium (Ge), which is a metalloid and semiconductor...

Free-space optics (FSO), also known as optical wireless communication or optical wireless networking, refers to the...

The ratio of the illuminance at the peak of the diffraction pattern of an aberrated point image to that at the peak of an...

A silicon photodiode is a semiconductor device that converts light into an electrical current. It is a type of photodetector...

The ratio of the diameter of the entrance pupil in an optical system to the equivalent focal length of that system. The...

An erecting prism that inverts and reverses the image. It displaces the optical axis but does not deviate it.

The visual examination by a trained observer of the image of a point source. Any coloring or departure from the Airy disc...

A characteristic of laser output, calculated by dividing the speed of light by the linewidth of the laser beam. The temporal...

An optical waveguide in which only the lowest order bound mode, which may consist of a pair of orthogonally polarized...

The path of a given point on a wavefront. One of the radii of a wave of light that indicates the direction of light travel.

An OLED display that has an integrated electronic backplane as its substrate. Active-matrix OLED displays use at least two...

Optical fiber optic switches are devices used in optical fiber communication systems to selectively route optical signals...

Made up of four elements; for instance, gadolinium, scandium, gallium and garnet (GSGG).

An instrument used to measure the coordinates of a point on an object such as a photographic plate.

A forerunner of the modern camera, this instrument had a focusable lens that produced a sharp image on the enclosure...

Rockwell hardness (Rc) refers to a method for measuring the hardness of a material, primarily metals, using an indentation...

An infrared light source is a device that emits light in the infrared spectrum, which lies beyond the visible spectrum of...

An immersion liquid used to treat polarizing filters to eliminate the effects of surface variations and to minimize the...

SI unit of luminous intensity. It is defined as one sixtieth the normal intensity of one square centimeter of a blackbody at...

The storage surface of an electron beam tube that is scanned by an electron beam to generate an output-signal current...

An instrument used to measure the change of heat content of a system by measuring microwave power in terms of generated heat.

Fixed-pattern noise is the measure of the static (nontemporal) differences between pixels when the detector is evenly...

A compound lens, the dimensions and materials of which have been so chosen that the lens is appreciably free of aberrations.

A hologram that is illuminated by a source from the viewer's side.

A reagent is a substance or compound that is used in a chemical reaction to bring about a specific transformation or to...

A device composed of a light source and phototube used to scan a moving strip of material in photoelectric side-register...

The locus of points in a system along a line that remains stationary while the remainder of the system rotates.

A transformer that is designed to regulate the amount of current that passes through an electron tube's filament.

Signal used in optical transmission systems to generate currents in a detector that are decoded with reference to a...

The method by which photographic film is scanned by an electron beam. One technique uses the uniform light of a television...

Phenomenon caused by an ultrashort and ultra-intense light pulse propagating in a Kerr medium, such as air or water. When...

The lowest order mode of a waveguide. In fibers, the mode designated LP01 or HE11.

Commonly known as CR39, this thermosetting plastic is used in the casting of eyeglass lenses because of its toughness and...

A system that transmits and receives identification codes to facilitate the discrimination between enemy and friend in a...

A substance that transmits the infrared, but which is too delicate or fragile to be used in the form of a single crystal....

An equation that uses the wavelength of light passing through a medium, along with a set of coefficients, to calculate the...

A partially filled or empty energy band through which electrons can move easily. The material can therefore carry an...

An imaging device whose technology contributes three specific advantages: ability to study large solid specimens that...

A free-electron laser (FEL) is a type of laser that generates coherent, high-intensity electromagnetic radiation by using a...

A magnifying lens fitted with a battery-operated lamp by which an object can be conveniently illuminated during observation.

An infrared detector mounted directly on the cold finger of the Dewar cooler rather than at the interface of Dewar and...

A binary code with two information states (1 and 0) and no neutral state between bits.

A positive lens located at or close to an intermediate image plane. The collector refracts off-axis light bundles, directing...

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) refers to a technology that converts heat energy into electricity using the principles of...

Design and engineering consulting services refer to professional services provided by specialized firms or individuals to...

The series of processes used to identify and evaluate crystal structure by using crystalline solids to diffract x-rays. In...

An impurity in a material that is capable of inducing electrical conduction in that material by transferring an electron to...

A type of flat panel display made up of a layer of gas between two glass plates. The glass is coated with parallel...

Photoplethysmography (PPG) is a non-invasive optical technique used to detect changes in blood volume in tissues. It...

A spatial light modulator (SLM) is an optical device that modulates or manipulates the amplitude, phase, or polarization of...

Die bonding is a critical process in semiconductor manufacturing and microelectronics assembly, where a semiconductor die or...

Calorimetry is a branch of science that involves the measurement of heat flow in physical or chemical processes. It...

1. A plane that forms one side of the groove ruled on a diffraction grating. 2. To form the individual grooves of a grating...

A package for electronic components that is suited for automated assembly into printed circuit boards. The DIP is...

A phototube having a cesium-coated cathode that has its greatest sensitivity in the infrared region.

Holmium lasers are a type of medical laser that utilizes holmium-doped crystals as the gain medium. The term holmium laser...

Flux per unit solid angle leaving a surface in any direction is proportional to the cosine of the angle between that...

An optical element designed to correct each zone of a reflector or refractor for spherical aberration.

A lamp, usually incandescent, that has a very compact filament, permitting a greater concentration of emitted light, aided...

A spectrophotometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the intensity of light at various wavelengths in the...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as...

Integration time, in the context of optics, imaging systems, and sensor technology, refers to the duration over which a...

A solid with a structure that exhibits a basically symmetrical and geometrical arrangement. A crystal may already possess...

The minimum electrical current input needed to initiate lasing.

A specific type of photographic plate designed with only a small amount of gelatin to function in the extreme ultraviolet...

A device that uses nematic liquid crystals sandwiched between fused silica substrates to change the phase of polarized...

An optical lens manufactured to control the transmission of light over a specified wavelength range. Low absorption lenses...

A rear or front projection screen composed of minute optical surfaces that introduce a spread to the light beam that...

An optical diffuser is an optical component or material designed to scatter or diffuse light that passes through it. It is...

A type of fatigue found in optical fibers, caused by water or another corroding agent.

In an optical waveguide,- typically a multimode fiber - the distortion resulting from differential mode delay, i.e. axial...

Composed of layers.

A contact tip made of artificial sapphire (AlO2) that allows surgeons to use laser power to cut and coagulate tissue...

A means of testing the strength of optical fibers to ensure reliability, by applying stress to the fiber so that any flaws...

The science that deals with the measurement of optical absorbance (i.e. optical densities) over microscopic areas of a given...

A small erect-image telescope for use as a sighting device on a rifle. The chief requirement is a long eye relief to avoid...

A time-to-amplitude converter (TAC) is an electronic circuit that converts a time interval between two events into an...

That wavelength at which the absorption of a given element or system begins to demonstrate an inconstant value.

Photobleaching is a phenomenon in which the fluorescence of a fluorophore (a fluorescent molecule or dye) is permanently...

An optical element having two principal axes, slow and fast, that resolve an incident polarized beam into two mutually...