Photonics Dictionary

A laser in which stimulated emission is triggered by the absorption by electrons of light from an auxiliary source such as a flash lamp, or another laser. See optical pumping.

A laser having a lasing material that is a fluorescing organic dye. Depending on the dye used, it can produce emission in any part of the visible spectrum into the near-infrared and ultraviolet, and...

A photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) refers to a type of laser diode that emits light from its surface rather than from the edges. Photonic crystals are periodic nanostructures that...

Operates with light collectively emitted by the recombination of free electrons and ions in the plasma state.

A laser that emits energy in a series of short bursts or pulses and that remains inactive between each burst or pulse. The frequency of the pulses is termed the pulse-repetition frequency.

A technique for depositing a material coating on metal, ceramic, semiconductor or polymer substrates. The interaction of laser energy with the target creates a plume of ablated material that is...

A laser with a gain medium consisting of an organic dye, which is carbon-based. The dye is mixed with a solvent, allowing the molecules to diffuse evenly throughout the liquid. The dye medium is...

A pump laser is a type of laser used to provide the necessary energy to the gain medium of another laser or laser system, initiating the process of stimulated emission and producing laser light. The...

A quantum cascade laser (QCL) is a type of semiconductor laser that operates based on the principles of quantum mechanics. It is a versatile and powerful device used for emitting coherent light in...

A type of laser diode that operates at long pulsewidths.

A laser that generates a succession of pulses at a high enough repetition rate to appear continuous. The pump source is switched on for short intervals, nominally equal to the lifetime of the...

A gas laser in which the electrodes are mounted perpendicular to the optical resonator.

A robotic process commonly employed by automakers that enables high-speed and flexible production throughput by using swiveling optics for precise beam positioning.

A pulsed laser that emits a recurring pulsed output. Frequency of the pulses emitted is known as pulsed recurrence frequency (PRF). When the PRF or duty cycle is very high, repetitively pulsed lasers...

A laser using a dye solution as the active medium whose resonator is formed into a ring (or a triangle or another shape) by means of multiple mirrors.

A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) is a type of gyroscope that uses laser light to detect and measure changes in orientation. It operates based on the Sagnac effect, which is a fundamental principle of...

A structured light device using a rapidly rotating laser to project a beam of light that appears to the human eye as a continuous circle; used as a reference marker on walls or landscape for...

A roughening laser is a laser-based surface modification technique aimed at altering the surface texture of a material to achieve specific properties such as enhanced adhesion, light diffusion, or...

The optically pumped, solid-state laser that uses sapphire as the host lattice and chromium as the active ion. The emission takes place in the red portion of the spectrum.

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology that belongs to the powder bed fusion category. SLM is primarily used for metal additive manufacturing, where...

A laser whose output is limited to a single wavelength.

Solid-state laser geometry in which the standard rod is replaced by a slab of laser material. Often called total-internal-reflection face-pumped laser (TIR-FPL).

A laser pumped by solar radiation focused by mirrors.

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...

A color center laser whose output is coupled to an external control laser cavity and then fed back to the main laser cavity to provide enhanced pulse shaping, leading to ultrashort pulse generation.

A semiconductor laser that operates in the infrared and that is pumped with strong pulses of radiation from a second laser. Dependent on quantum-mechanical principles, it can be tuned over a large...

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...

A type of laser used when a great amount of power is required. Avoiding the bulk of large numbers of optical lenses, this instrument offers high-output intensity and a small emitting region at...

In rudimentary form, this technology consists of diffusion of a PN junction through a mask of silica, over which a contact is applied.

(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 semiconductor laser diode that emits light perpendicular to the active region. The output radiation is taken through the surface as opposed to through a cleaved mirror.

A swept-source laser, also known as a wavelength-swept laser, is a type of laser that rapidly and continuously changes its emission wavelength over time. This continuous wavelength tuning is achieved...

A laser having a material, such as ruby, that has an energy state structure of three levels: the ground state (1) wherein excitation applied to the material raises ions in the material into the...

A laser fitted with up to eight optical fibers that transmit the energy to different workstations in turn.

A Ti:sapphire laser is a type of solid-state laser that utilizes a titanium-doped sapphire crystal as the gain medium. The name Ti:sapphire comes from the combination of titanium (Ti) as the dopant...

Abbreviated TEA CO2 laser. A gas laser that provides shorter pulses and higher peak powers than conventional CO2 lasers. The electrical excitation pulse occurs transversely to the optical axis...

Also known as TEA laser. A coherent optical source with a wide wavelength range in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet that uses an electrical discharge transverse to (across) the optical axis to...

Any form of laser; e.g., a dye laser, having an output that can be adjusted over a wide range of wavelengths. Normally the range is about 70 nm wide.

An ultrafast pulsed laser is a type of laser that emits extremely short pulses of light with durations typically on the order of femtoseconds (10-15 seconds) or picoseconds (10-12 seconds). These...

A laser capable of generating light pulses that last only a few femtoseconds. This can be achieved by nonlinear filtering to increase bandwidth and compress the pulse or by passive mode-locking or...

A pulsed laser having molecular nitrogen as laser material and a wavelength output of 337 nm in the ultraviolet region. It is essentially a channel flashtube in which a pulse is applied to the...

Lasers based on neodymium-doped yttrium or gadolinium vanadate crystals. These include yttrium vanadate (Nd:YVO4), gadolinium vanadate (Nd:GdVO4), and lutetium vanadate (Nd:LuVO4). Vanadate lasers...

A method of measuring negatively charged phase ions using a color-center or lead-salt diode laser.

A laser that has a surface-emitting semiconductor gain element coupled to an external mirror designed to complete the laser resonator. VECSELs can be electrically or optically pumped. The extended...

A type of surface-emitting laser diode that uses dielectric mirrors to produce surface emission. The laser cavity is established in a vertical direction with respect to the plane of the active region.

Gas laser in which the tube acts as a channel for the laser beam.