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DOE Dictionary Terms

quantitative phase imaging
Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is an advanced imaging technique used in microscopy to measure and analyze the optical...
camera
A light-tight box that receives light from an object or scene and focuses it to form an image on a light-sensitive material...
zone plate
A plate of glass, usually a photograph, on which there is a central spot surrounded by concentric annular zones, alternately...
toric surface
A surface that is swept out by revolving a circle about an axis that lies in the plane of the circle but that does not...
lensless microscopy
Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and...
beauty defect
A defect on or in an optical element that does not appreciably impair the function of the surface.
spectral domain optical coherence tomography
Spectral domain optical coherence tomography is an imaging technique used in medical diagnostics, particularly in...
inner focusing
In a camera, the movement of one or more lenses behind the front lens, rather than of the front lens itself, to bring the...
viewfinder
A device, optical or electronic, that may be joined to a camera so that the operator may perceive the scene as the camera...
terminated crossbar
An optical matrix that does not require perfection in both states of the crosspoint, so that all the optical switches can be...
liquid gate
An immersion liquid used to treat polarizing filters to eliminate the effects of surface variations and to minimize the...
extraordinary ray
A ray that has a nonisotropic speed in a doubly refracting crystal. It does not necessarily obey Snell's law upon refraction...
trunk
In a fiber optic communications network, a circuit that connects two switching centers and does not branch off to terminal...
coelostat
A plane mirror mounted on a polar axis that lies parallel to the plane of the mirror. When the mirror is rotated once in 48...
band-to-band photoluminescence
The emission of a photon by the return of an excited carrier from the conduction band to the valence band of a semiconductor...
sand hole
A crude area on the polished surface, produced during coarse grinding, that subsequent fine grinding does not remove, owing,...
guided mode
In an optical waveguide, a mode whose field decays monotonically in the transverse direction everywhere external to the core...
structural color
Structural color refers to coloration in materials that is not caused by pigments or dyes but is instead a result of the...
beam shaper
A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or...
label-free
Label-free refers to a technique or method that does not require the use of additional labels, tags, or markers to detect or...
optical combiner
An optical combiner, in the context of optics and display technologies, refers to a device or component that combines...
empty magnification
Magnification that is above the level of maximum useful magnification and does not contribute useful resolving power. In a...
passive optical component
A device that responds to incident light but does not generate light.
double refraction
The separation of unpolarized light into two plane-polarized elements by a doubly refracting crystal. When a crystal, such...
biplanar image tube
Also called proximity focus image intensifier. A compact image intensifier that utilizes a microchannel plate...
recombinase polymerase amplification
Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) is a molecular biology technique used to rapidly amplify specific DNA or RNA...
nondestructive testing
Any testing method for materials and components that does not damage or destroy the test sample. Some of the methods used...
Dammann grating
A Dammann grating is a type of diffractive optical element (DOE) used to create an array of equally spaced,...
open optical interface
An interface in an optical network that permits an optical signal to pass without changing the optical signal to an...
skew ray
Any ray through an optical system that is not a meridional ray. The plane created by a refracted skew ray does not contain...
nonthermal radiation
The radiation emitted from a group of charged particles that does not depend on the temperature of the source in which those...
leman prism
An erecting prism that inverts and reverses the image. It displaces the optical axis but does not deviate it.
stabilized light source
A light source that does not fluctuate despite temperature changes.
diffraction efficiency
Diffraction efficiency is a measure of how effectively a diffractive optical element (DOE) or diffraction grating directs...
closed-circuit television system
A television system that does not broadcast television signals but transmits them over a closed circuit.
amplified spontaneous emission
Broadband radiation emitted by a laser that does not transmit through the optical element. It can be removed by filtering.
four-wave mixing
A phenomenon that occurs in WDM and DWDM systems when three closely spaced signal wavelengths near the zero-dispersion...
decision-tree classification
A structural method of optical character recognition, used where the input media are variable, as in hand-written or...
light fidelity
LiFi, short for light fidelity, is a wireless communication technology that utilizes visible light or infrared light to...
internal transmittance
The ratio of the radiant power transmitted to the second surface of a medium to the corresponding radiant power that has...
Seidel aberrations
Seidel aberrations refer to a set of monochromatic aberrations in optical systems, named after the German mathematician and...
paraboloidal mirror
A concave mirror that has the form of a paraboloid of revolution. The paraboloidal mirror may have only a portion of a...
diamond-turned optic
Diamond turning refers to a precision machining process used to produce complex optical components, particularly lenses and...
smectic phase
A form of liquid crystal in which flow does not take place in the usual manner. When examined with polarized light, the...
micro-optics
Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level....
nonselective sensor
A radiometric device or system having uniform responsivity relative to all of the radiation parameters, or relative to one...
Mie scattering
Mie scattering, named after the German physicist Gustav Mie, refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (such as...
vacuum ultraviolet source
Any source that emits radiation of wavelengths between 100 and 300 nm. Instruments used to study these sources must be...
low-loss fiber
Optical fiber that transmits a greater percentage of input light than does high-loss step-index fiber. Low-loss fiber...
intrinsic detector
A photodetector composed of a photoconductive material that, when exposed to radiation, conducts without the aid of added...
phase mask
In optics and photolithography, a phase mask refers to a device that modifies the phase of light waves passing through it....
laser marking
Laser marking is a process in which a laser beam is used to mark or engrave a surface by altering its properties or...
Langmuir-Blodgett technique
A method of depositing crystalline films one molecular layer at a time, by dipping the substrate into water containing a...
nonionizing radiation
Radiation that does not produce free electrons and ions, or electrically charged particles.
proximity-focused image tube
A planar photocathode and a planar phosphor screen mounted in a close-spaced parallel configuration in an evacuated...
infrared optic
Infrared optics refer to optical components and systems designed to manipulate and control infrared (IR) light, which lies...
metastable state
An excited energy state of an atom or atomic system that has a longer lifetime than the ordinary excited state and typically...
Fizeau interferometer
A type of interferometer noted for producing narrow multiple-beam interference fringes. As a result, when compared with the...
penumbra
A source of light will not cast a distinct shadow of an interfering, opaque object, but will cast a shadow having two parts:...
affine transformation
Transformation of an image, such as a change in position or scale, that does not alter the linearity of the original image.
Whittaker-Shannon theorem
The theorem stating that, when the sampling period in a recorded sample hologram is matched to the object spectrum, the...
continuous wave
Continuous wave (CW) refers to a type of signal or transmission where the signal is constant and does not vary with time. In...

(62 results found)

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