Zurich Instruments AG - Boost Your Optics July-August LB

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Meadowlark Optics - Wave Plates 6/24 MR 2024

7,367 terms

Photonics Dictionary

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concentricity error

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

condenser

A single positive lens or group of lenses used in a projection system to collect light from a source and cause it to illuminate evenly the object to be projected.

condenser, Abbe -> Abbe condenser

An Abbe condenser is a type of optical component used in microscopy to enhance the illumination of the specimen. Named after the German physicist Ernst Abbe, who developed it in the 19th century, the...

conductance

A material property that is the inverse of its resistance to the flow of electricity.

conduction band

A partially filled or empty energy band through which electrons can move easily. The material can therefore carry an electric current. The term is usually applied to semiconductors.

conduction welding

A type of laser welding of thin materials using a defocused or low-power carbon dioxide laser beam. The energy is absorbed by the material through conduction and melts the material to produce an edge...

cone

1. A solid figure whose base is a circle and whose sides taper upward evenly to a point or apex. Light rays diverging from or converging upon a point are sometimes referred to as a cone of light. 2....

confocal resonator

A confocal resonator, also known as a confocal cavity or confocal laser resonator, is a type of optical resonator configuration used in laser systems. The term confocal in this context refers to the...

confocal scanning microscope

A microscope design that involves apertures inserted in conjugate plane positions inside the microscope, with one aperture in front of the illumination source and the other at the focal position in...

confocal spherical interferometer

An interferometer formed by two similar concave spherical mirrors arranged with the center of one sphere on the other mirror. In this instrument the field is more concentrated by the axis of the...

conic refraction

The dispersion of a light ray striking the surface of a biaxial crystal, in which the resulting rays are reflected in a conical manner.

conic section

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

conical lens

A lens with a surface that is a cone instead of the usual sphere.

conical scan sensor

A device used to determine the location and attitude with respect to the Earth of orbiting spacecraft by detecting the difference in thermal radiance between the Earth's horizon and space.

conjugate autofocus system

A system that determines whether an image is in or out of focus by means of a source of illumination at the conjugate focal point, which reflects off the target; the return beam is mediated by masks...

conjugate focus -> conjugate points

The two points on the principal axis of a mirror or lens so positioned that light emitted from either point will be focused at the other, i.e., object and image points.

conjugate holographic image

Also known as real holographic image. The indistinct, highly distorted image produced on the side of the hologram closest to the observer, in addition to the primary image. When the location of the...

conjugate points

The two points on the principal axis of a mirror or lens so positioned that light emitted from either point will be focused at the other, i.e., object and image points.

conjugate ratio

The ratio between the object distance and the image distance measured along the principal axis of a lens or mirror. An object at the focal point of a lens has an infinite conjugate ratio; an object...

conjugator -> phase conjugation

The use of a reflective device, which can be fashioned from a variety of materials including gases, solids, dyes, aerosols, semiconductor crystals and plasmas, to replicate a laser beam by reversing...

connectome

A connectome refers to a comprehensive map or diagram of neural connections within the brain or nervous system of an organism. It encompasses all the intricate pathways formed by neurons, including...

connector

Hardware installed on fiber cable ends to provide cable attachment to a transmitter, receiver or other cable. Usually a device that can be connected and disconnected repeatedly.

connector loss

Energy loss encountered at connectors in optical fiber transmission systems. The major contributors are mutual core displacement and fiber axis tilt. It is observed in both permanent splices and...

conoscope

An optical instrument, generally a polarizing microscope, that is used to determine the interference figures and optical axis of a sample crystal. Also called a hodoscope.

conservation of radiance

The principle that states that optical instrumentation cannot increase the radiance of a source; the radiance of an image cannot exceed that of the object.

constant angle fringes -> Haidinger fringes

Also known as constant angle or constant deviation fringes. The interference fringes observed with dense flat plates near normal incidence. The fringes of the Fabry-Perot interferometer are Haidinger...

constant deviation

That property of certain optical devices, e.g., a penta prism, that maintains the angular relationship between the entering and the emerging rays traversing the system regardless of the orientation...

constant deviation fringes -> Haidinger fringes

constant linear velocity

Method of disk rotation used for optical disk drives, in which the spindle motor decreases the speed of the disk's rotation as the head moves from the inner tracks to the outer, so that the radial...

constant luminance encoder

A device used in broadcast CCD cameras to improve definition in heavily saturated colors by band-limiting the color difference signals after gamma correction.

constant variant enhancement

Technique that uses high-pass filtering to reduce the local average to zero for all regions of the picture and then applies a gain factor equal to the reciprocal of the local standard deviation to...

constrigence

Reciprocal of the dispersive power of an optical material. See Abbe constant.

contact blocking

Also called color blocking. The formation of a block by making optical contact between a number of optical elements and a large optical flat.

contact fluid

A liquid, usually of a specific refractive index and dispersion, serving as an interface between two solids to form a complete light transmission system.

contact fluorography

A fluorographic method whereby the sensitive photographic medium is pressed against a fluorescent screen to form a visible image.

contact laser surgery

Laser surgery by means of a low-power laser system using a synthetic sapphire scalpel that transmits the laser light while in direct contact with the tissue.

contact microradiography

The radiography of small objects having detail too fine to be seen by the unaided eye. The resulting negative, when optically enlarged, can be examined.

contention rate

The maximum number of users who are using a given communication channel. Typically, the number of users at any given time is below this maximum, with the contention rate representing a worst case...

contextual analysis

In optical character recognition systems, the identification of a character facilitated by means of known factors governing its appearance in a particular context; e.g., the first character in the...

continuous dynode electron multiplier -> channel electron multiplier

A photoelectric detector consisting of a glass tube internally coated with a low conductance material. Voltage applied along the tube causes photoemission from the photocathode at the end of the tube...

continuous spectrum

The radiation spectrum of matter found in condensed states, liquid or solid, that is continuous and not a line spectrum. The details of this spectrum are almost independent of the matter emitting 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 various contexts, the term is used to describe continuous, uninterrupted...

continuous-wave laser

A laser that emits radiation continuously rather than in short bursts, as in a pulsed laser.

contour analysis

A method in optical character recognition in which a mobile light beam scans the outlines of characters for subsequent reading of these outlines.

contour projection chart

A large-scale, precise drawing of the contours of a perfect mechanical part, often with plus and minus tolerances drawn or indicated. For quality control decisions, enlarged images of mechanically...

contour projector

An inspection device in which the profile of a mechanical part is projected onto a ground-glass screen at a precisely known magnification so that the shape of the part can be compared with a scale...

contouring

Selection of specific brightness values or minimum threshold levels as contingencies for the display of digital data.

contourography

The generation, usually by a cathode-ray oscilloscope, of a two-dimensional image having a three-dimensional appearance.

contrast

The apparent difference in brightness between light and dark areas of an image. For a light target against a dark background, contrast is computed as follows: where Lt is the luminance of the...

contrast control

With respect to television, a potentiometer that allows variation of the intensity of the different elements of an image and that can be used to accentuate the highlights and shadows in an image. In...

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