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8,236 terms
Photonics Dictionary
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diode
A two-electrode device with an anode and a cathode that passes current in only one direction. It may be designed as an electron tube or as a semiconductor device.
diode driver
diode laser
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diode laser
A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...
diode laser
A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...
diode-pumped solid-state laser
A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a type of laser system that uses semiconductor diode lasers to pump energy into a solid gain medium, resulting in the generation of coherent light. This...
diopter movement
The adjustment of the eyepiece of an instrument to provide accommodation for the eyesight differences of individual observers. The axial distance through which the eyepiece must be moved, to provide...
diopter scale
A scale located on the eyepiece focusing screw and used to measure the amount of defocusing of the eyepiece in diopters. The reciprocal of the image distance in meters is a measure of the amount of...
diopter
A unit of optical measurement that expresses the refractive power of a lens or prism. In a lens or lens system, it is the reciprocal of the focal length in meters. For example, if a lens has a focal...
dioptometer
A telescopic system having an eyepiece, a reticle and an objective. The instrument measures wavefront power in diopters.
dioptric system
An optical system that uses refraction to form an image.
dioptrics
The branch of optics that deals with the study of the refraction of light, particularly by the transmitting medium of the eye, and by lenses.
dip
The departure of a curved surface from the plane that is tangent to its vertex. See sag.
diplexer
A coupling unit that enables more than one transmitter to operate at the same time or separately on the same antenna.
diplopia
A defect of vision where a single object appears as two. Also known as double vision.
dipole polarization
Electric polarization characterized by homogeneous polar dielectrics and ascribed to the position of the permanent molecular dipoles.
dipvergence
The vertical angular disparity between the lines of sight of the left and right systems in a binocular instrument. Dipvergence is plus when the right image is below the left image.
direct detection
In a fiber optic transmission system, the conversion of received optical pulses directly to an electrical signal.
direct illumination
Light produced by visible radiation that moves from the light source to the object without reflection. With respect to microscopy, this is the light that directly strikes the stage of the microscope...
direct laser interference patterning
Also called DLIP, a high-speed, high-resolution processing technique that uses high-power, pulsed laser systems to directly ablate micro- and nanoperiodic structures with different features on large...
direct radiative transition
An energy transition concerned with photons alone.
direct ray
A ray that travels from one point to another without being reflected or refracted.
direct read after write
A write-once optical disc storage system in which the optical head reads continuously while writing to check the accuracy of the stored data. Data recorded erroneously are then rewritten at another...
direct scanning
A scanning technique in which the object is illuminated the entire time, and in which picture elements of the object are viewed singly by the television camera.
direct screen focusing
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, the recording medium is inserted in place of the screen.
direct time-of-flight
Direct time-of-flight (dTOF) is a technique used in 3D imaging and depth sensing to measure the time taken for light or electromagnetic waves to travel from a source to a target object and back to a...
direct transmission
Light transmission involving no scatter.
direct viewfinder
A viewfinder whose optical system forms a direct image of a subject, as opposed to those systems that use reflectance in the image formation.
direct viewing
The observation of a reproduced television picture on the face of a cathode-ray tube.
direct-line fluorescence
With respect to atomic fluorescence spectroscopy, the fluorescence that is emitted by an atom at a spectral line of a wavelength that is longer than that of the stimulating radiation.
direct-view storage tube
A cathode-ray tube in which secondary emission electrons form a display of high intensity.
direct-vision pocket spectroscope
A small handheld instrument consisting of a slit and collimator that feeds light into a small direct-vision dispersing prism. The eye is placed behind the prism to observe the spectrum of a colored...
direct-vision prism
An assembly of multiple prisms that disperses incident light into its spectral components without deviating light at the central wavelength.
directed energy
Directed energy refers to a type of energy that is emitted and transferred in a controlled direction. The term is often associated with military and technological applications where energy, typically...
directional reflectance
Reflectance in a specified direction, for a specified direction of incident illumination.
director
In a liquid crystal system, the director refers to the local symmetry axis around which the long range order of the liquid crystal is aligned. In the case of the nematic phase, the molecular long...
dirt hole
A hole filled with dirt such as a polishing abrasive and located in an optical surface. See dig; scratch.
disc
A piece of glass that eventually becomes the bifocal segment as it appears prior to being fused to the blank.
disc calorimeter
A device that provides simple and reliable laser power and energy measurement. Essentially a heat flux sensor producing an output proportional to the power, rather than the energy input.
disc colorimeter
A colorimeter using a spinning disc made of different colored sections for colorimetric analysis.
disc laser
A laser having a rod that is a stacked array of discs immersed in a transparent flowing coolant fluid. In this way, the cooling rate is increased, the temperature gradients are basically parallel to...
disc telescope
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coronagraph
A telescope in which a mask occults the solar disk, generating an artificial eclipse and allowing observation and recording of the sun's corona.
discharge lamp
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electric-discharge lamp
A lamp that uses the transmission of an electric current through a gas or vapor to produce illumination. Neon, mercury and argon lamps are examples of electric-discharge lamps.
discontinuously reinforced aluminum
A composite derived from aluminum alloy powder and silicon carbide, used as an optical substrate in air- and spacecraft applications. It is as light as aluminum but exhibits greater strength and...
discrete
An individual circuit component, complete in itself, such as a resistor, diode, capacitor or transistor. It is used as an individual and separable circuit element.
discrete cosine transform
A mathematical transformation used in image and video compression that changes two-dimensional representation of data into data defined by the frequency content. Adapted in JPEG and MPEG standards.
discrete spectrum
A spectrum of component wavelengths whose values are separate from each other.
discrimination
The degree to which a vision system is capable of sensing differences in light intensity between two regions.
discriminator
A circuit incorporated into counter systems that records only pulses that have amplitudes between two preselected limits.
dislocation
The region of distorted atom configuration formed between the displaced and normal areas in a crystal when part of the crystal is displaced tangentially.
dispersing prism
A prism or series of prisms used to disperse a beam of radiant energy of mixed wavelengths into its spectral components.
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Photonics Dictionary
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