Photonics Dictionary

The science of producing, recording, storing, transmitting and displaying visual images by any system (photographic, video, facsimile, etc.) in any form.

The process of mapping the infrared emittance of an area through the use of an infrared detector and related scanning instrumentation to produce thermal images that are then recorded on photographic...

The photographic recording of images on a medium sensitive to infrared radiation, using a source capable of emitting in the infrared and a filter that transmits only infrared radiation.

Photographic recording that uses infrared radiation as the light source to form an image of a microscopic object and a system of lenses and objectives that are transparent to the radiation. The image...

A spectrophotometer having a prism or, more frequently, a grating for the study and recording of infrared spectra. It usually consists of a radiation source such as a Nernst glower, a monochromator,...

A reflection hologram using multiple color lasers that integrates various graphical techniques to allow the display of three-dimensional images of live objects in motion, as well as outdoor scenes,...

A photographic or electronic recording of an optical interference pattern.

A direct recording photometer that is designed to scan a photographic negative to determine its points of isodensity.

The photographic record of the diffracted beams formed when heterogeneous x-rays emerging from a pinhole or slit impinge upon one crystal.

A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording, each object point produces fringes having one spatial frequency across the...

Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and reconstructs microscopic images without the use of traditional lenses. Instead of...

A type of stereoscopic photography in which a pair of lenses focuses a pair of images, relative to the positions of the two eyes, onto film through a lenticular screen, which records the images as an...

The stereo image that is recorded by the lenticular, stereo photographic process.

The term light field refers to the spatial distribution of light rays traveling in all directions through a given space. It includes information about the intensity and direction of light rays at...

In optics, a pattern, such as the Buchmann-Meyer pattern, that may be viewed when the record surface is illuminated by a light beam having parallel rays.

A line-scan camera, also known as a line-scan image sensor or linear array camera, is a type of digital camera designed to capture images one line or row of pixels at a time, rather than a full...

A lock-in amplifier is a specialized electronic instrument used to extract and measure small signals embedded in noise or interference. It is particularly useful in fields such as spectroscopy,...

Instrumentation designed to permit the perception, recording or measurement of scenes under conditions of low incident illumination.

A type of photometer calibrated in luminance units (candles per square unit, or lamberts). In photography an exposure meter contains a luminance meter to record the average luminance of a scene.

The photographic recordformed in macrophotography in which the size of the small nearby object at theimage plane is the same size or greater than the actual life size of theobject.

A variation of the atomic force microscope that operates by scanning a tiny ferromagnetic probe (or a magnetized tip) over a magnetic sample, and detecting the extremely small forces exerted on the...

A device using the Kerr effect to read back the signals from mechanically recorded tapes and discs. It consists of a light source, optical lenses to focus and direct the light beam, a pair of...

A device that uses electromagnetic fields to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses. As a beam of charged particles is passed through a mass spectrograph, the result is a...

A device used to measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules. It utilizes the Lorentz force generated by external magnetic field on a moving charged particle, in which the...

A spectrum that displays the distribution in mass or in mass-to-charge ratio of ionized atoms, molecules or molecular parts. Mass spectrums are typically recorded by instruments utilized in mass...

The analysis of metal structure using an optical or electron microscope, generally with a camera, to record observations.

The photographic recording of objects or events in a manner that allows quantitative information to be derived from the photograph. An example is the film made by a cinetheodolite in photographing a...

A small card (10 x 15 cm) that has been treated with a photographic emulsion to record and store the microimages of documents and graphic information projected on it by a microfilm camera. A...

Radiographic recording and enhancement of the micoscopic details within the structure of thin specimens at a high magnification. Also known as x-ray micrography

A microspectroscope equipped with a sensing and recording device, such as a camera, to measure the spectrum formed by microscopic samples.

The holographic recording of the pattern formed by two sets of coherent microwaves that interfere at a scanning plane. A scanning device converts the microwave interference pattern into a light...

A computer-generated, phase-and-amplitude, off-axis hologram made by a multi-exposure technique that uses three computer generated transmission masks. Each mask controls one fixed-phase component of...

A group of photosensors arranged in a grid-like pattern covering the entire field of view, enabling them to record it all at once (as a camera records an image on film) rather than by scanning parts...

Method for reducing laser speckle in which the object field comes from a real diffuse object or the reconstructed object field from a hologram. During recording of the image, an aperture is moved in...

A group of four cameras loaded with different combinations of filters and film (one is usually an infrared color film) to permit the recording of the same subject in four separate regions of the...

A camera that uses a rotating mirror to project sequential images onto lenses that are arranged in an arc. The reflected images can then be recorded on stationary film. By using an 8-mm frame format,...

The recording and mathematical analysis of all spectral intervals of the spectrometer simultaneously.

An instrument used to record the emittance or reflectance of an object by scanning with discrete spectral resolution over a wide spectral band, or recording many discrete spectral bands...

A scanning probe microscope that analyzes the surface of a specimen by recording the intensity of light as it is focused through a pipette and raster scanned across the specimen at a distance less...

A near-infrared (NIR) camera is an imaging device designed to capture images in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The near-infrared spectrum typically extends from about 700...

The nondestructive analysis and recording of industrial components based on the absorption of relatively low-energy neutrons by material having low atomic numbers. The visible image formed by the...

A device that uses low-level visible radiation or infrared radiation to produce a visual image of a night scene. These devices may rely on the amplification of existing visible light by...

A photographic emulsion of the silver-halide type that is used to record the path of a charged traveling particle. The tracks recorded on these emulsions are typically observed under a microscope...

In holography, the wave of light that illuminates the object to be recorded, which diffracts it to the recording medium, where it interferes with the reference beam, generating the hologram.

A coarse diffraction grating that is used to form a scale of intensities to determine the relative magnitudes of stars. The grating is placed over the objective of a telescope to form a diffraction...

The methods and techniques used to obtain medical photographs of the human eye. To photograph the exterior of the eye, conventional still photographic equipment and procedures are used. Similarly, in...

In dry etching, a method of characterizing the composition of solid materials such as metal. Atoms in the OES technique are excited by energy that comes from a spark formed between the sample and an...