Photonics Dictionary

A type of color-generating cathode-ray tube that uses a shadow mask, a thin perforated electrode, located close to the display screen. Each hole in the mask coincides with a triad of three phosphor...

Also referred to as the width of the dark pulse. This is the time interval between the instant the particle approaches the beam and the instant the particle leaves the beam.

A singlet lens is an optical lens made from a single piece of material, typically glass or plastic, with one or both surfaces being spherical or aspherical. It is the most basic type of lens used in...

Sisyphus cooling is a technique used in atomic physics to achieve ultracold temperatures of atoms or molecules by exploiting the periodic motion of particles in optical traps or lattices. The name...

A system employing a dark trace tube in which the opacity of the screen is varied as a function of the power of the beam.

The investigation of microstructures by an instrument that generates a narrow, highly collimated beam of x-rays.

A transmission interference microscope that produces interference patterns of a sample by using birefringent plates that split a polarized beam of light into ordinary and extraordinary rays, then...

A gelatinous fluid that can be used as a porous thin-film coating for optical components, including laser beam collimators, or as a protective coating for glass and crystalline materials.

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 light. The term "solid-state" refers to the fact that the active medium, where...

The diagnostic procedure that uses ultrasonic energy to probe the body and, with the help of laser beams, a reflecting membrane to produce a three-dimensional picture.

The maintenance of a fixed-phase relationship across the full diameter of a cross section of a laser beam.

1. Generally, an emulsion mask having a clean annular region in an otherwise opaque region. It is designed to eliminate undesired information. 2. A pinhole in a metal plate, placed at a focal plane...

A beam instability, induced by index of refraction inhomogeneities and component damage of dirt and dust particles, that exhibits exponential growth and causes both system degradation and energy loss...

Spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) is an optical microscopy technique that belongs to the category of quantitative phase imaging methods. It is designed to provide high-resolution,...

A spatial light modulator (SLM) is an optical device that modulates or manipulates the amplitude, phase, or polarization of light in two dimensions, typically in the form of an array. SLMs are...

Also known as transverse mode. The configurations of energy storage, relative to the structure of a laser resonator, that define the relative intensity distribution of the laser beam.

In laser systems, the granular effect that is noted when observing the expanded cross section of a laser beam.

A power intensity pattern produced by the mutual interference of partially coherent beams that are subject to minute temporal and spatial fluctuations.

Ratio of the luminous flux in a beam of radiation to the spectral radiant flux in the same beam at a given wavelength.

When, for example, a beam of monochromatic light passes through a diffraction grating, the emergent rays that have remained undeviated are included in the zero spectral order. The light flux in the...

A spectrophotometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the intensity of light at various wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically in the visible and ultraviolet regions. It is...

An instrument that divides a single laser beam in two and uses one half as a sensing beam and the other as a reference beam, then recombines the two and measures any phase shift between them. The...

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

The degree to which a laser beam is aligned parallel to the housing axis.

A technique for creating optimal performance in a system by producing a specific beam irradiance distribution, usually through the use of geometric optics. A common design involves the use of ray...

STED microscopy, or stimulated emission depletion microscopy, is a superresolution imaging technique in fluorescence microscopy that surpasses the diffraction limit, enabling the visualization of...

The projection of the image beam by a cathode-ray tube through a mask, where it is deflected through the suitable character position in the mask and then deflected by another system to its suitable...

Light from a pulsed laser focused into nonsaturable absorbing fluid that generates a strongly backscattered light beam with a frequency higher than that of the incident light.

The parameters, relative to polarized light and the Poincaré sphere, that are usually represented as: I, the intensity of the light beam; M, that part of the beam polarized in the horizontal plane;...

A term referring to the pre-exposed hologram of the subject used in holographic interferometry.

The pattern formed by a character generation cathode-ray tube system, in which the characters are composed of a sequence of line segments (strokes) generated by the electron beam motion with time...

Controlled beam technology that introduces beams of sunlight through holes in a roof that are relayed throughout the building by a series of mirrors and lenses. Ideally, cool lighting is obtained by...

Superresolution refers to the enhancement or improvement of the spatial resolution beyond the conventional limits imposed by the diffraction of light. In the context of imaging, it is a set of...

(SALI) A type of spectroscopy in which neutral atoms or molecules are ionized by an excimer laser beam and then measured by a time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

A synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields to steer charged particles, typically electrons or positrons, in a closed, circular or elliptical path. The name synchrotron...

1. The anode or anticathode of an x-ray tube that emits x-rays when bombarded by electrons. 2. The screen in a television imaging tube that is scanned by an electron beam to determine the...

A characteristic of laser output, calculated by dividing the speed of light by the linewidth of the laser beam. The temporal coherence length of different lasers thus varies from a few centimeters to...

The process of attaching a device to the end of a fiber cable to enable the beam to be transmitted farther, to pass to another device and to avoid reflection.

The effect that characterizes an intense laser beam that is passed through an absorbing medium, causing the absorbed energy to produce density changes that can alter the intensity distribution of the...

Distortion of an optical component as a result of heat, which can influence the divergence and the mode quality of a beam passing through the component.

A thin layer of a substance deposited on an insulating base in a vacuum by a microelectronic process. Thin films are most commonly used for antireflection, achromatic beamsplitters, color filters,...

1. The process of following an object's movement; accomplished by focusing a radar beam on the reticle of an optical system on the object and plotting its bearing and distance at specific intervals....

A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a powerful microscopy technique that uses a beam of electrons to create high-resolution images of extremely thin samples. In a TEM, electrons are...

The decrease in power that occurs when an optical beam or signal is transmitted through a system.

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