Photonics Dictionary

Measures the refractive indices axially from the fiber profile. Microscopy technique provides an interferogram with high contrast with demonstrated improvements in relation to the Pluta two-beam...

A cell filled with a transparent material that, when placed in a strong electrical field, exhibits double refraction. Since the two polarized elements of an incident light beam travel at different...

The Kerr effect, named after the physicist John Kerr who first observed it in 1875, is a nonlinear optical phenomenon where the refractive index of a material changes in response to an applied...

A Kerr soliton refers to a specific type of soliton, a self-reinforcing wave packet, that arises in nonlinear optical systems due to the Kerr effect. The Kerr effect is the phenomenon where the...

Label-free refers to a technique or method that does not require the use of additional labels, tags, or markers to detect or identify specific components or entities. In various scientific and...

Laser drift typically refers to a phenomenon where the frequency or wavelength of a laser source gradually changes over time. In the context of lasers, stability in terms of frequency or wavelength...

In photonics, a lattice refers to a periodic arrangement of optical elements or structures, often on a microscopic or nanoscopic scale. These optical lattices can be created using various techniques...

The law stating that when light strikes a surface at such an angle that the reflected and refracted rays are perpendicular to each other, the maximum polarization of the light occurs in both...

A lens blank is a piece of optical material in a raw, unfinished state, typically in the form of a disk or block, from which lenses are eventually fabricated. Lens blanks are made from various...

A lens is a transparent optical device that focuses or diverges light, allowing it to pass through and form an image. Lenses are commonly used in optical systems, such as cameras, telescopes,...

An optical fiber with a hollow core filled with a liquid material that has a higher refractive index than the solid surrounding it.

Liquid or fluid optics refers to the use of liquids to create or enhance optical systems. These systems leverage the unique properties of liquids, such as their ability to change shape, refractive...

A crystal often used for windows and refracting components in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared. Characteristically, this form has excellent transmission from 0.14 to 6.0 µm.

A form of mirage where objects near or just below the horizon appear in enlarged or distorted form because of atmospheric refraction. The glow in the sky caused by the presence of light below the...

A dielectric sphere with an index of refraction that varies with distance from the sphere center. A parallel beam of rays is focused on the lens surface at a point diametrically opposite the...

A colorless, crystalline compound whose low refractive index (n = 1.38) makes it effective as a lens antireflection coating when deposited by thermal evaporation in a near vacuum. This process...

A blank to which a piece of glass of a different refractive index will be fused to form a multifocal lens.

The distortion in an ophthalmic lens resulting from the refraction of light rays entering the periphery of the lens surface. It increases relative to the power of the lens.

The dispersion attributable to the wavelength dependence of the refractive index of the material used in any optical application.

A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other...

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring substances. These materials are designed to manipulate electromagnetic waves in ways that are not...

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrays of subwavelength-scale artificial structures, often referred to as meta-atoms or meta-elements, arranged in a specific pattern to manipulate the propagation of...

A micro-ring resonator is a compact optical device that utilizes the resonant behavior of light within a small ring-shaped waveguide structure to selectively enhance or filter certain wavelengths of...

A microbubble resonator is a device used in photonics and optical physics for the precise manipulation of light waves. It consists of a micro-sized, gas-filled spherical cavity (the "microbubble")...

A device to modulate spatially a collimated coherent beam of light with input data in optical data processing. It uses a photocathode mounted on a microchannel plate, which amplifies an electron...

The technology of manipulating light on a micro scale. In optical communications, this is usually accomplished using two or more materials with significantly different indicies of refraction. In most...

Mie scattering, named after the German physicist Gustav Mie, refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (such as light) by spherical particles. Unlike Rayleigh scattering, which is...

The distortion of an object's true image as the result of abnormal atmospheric disturbances along the path traveled by the light. The atmospheric disturbances common with mirages are a result of a...

Modal bandwidth is a crucial parameter in optical fiber communication systems, particularly in multimode fiber (MMF) systems. It quantifies the ability of a fiber optic link to transmit data at high...

Mode hopping in the context of lasers refers to a phenomenon where a laser system abruptly switches from one longitudinal mode to another. In a laser, different longitudinal modes represent distinct...

Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is a technique used in the fabrication of optical fibers. It is a specialized form of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that is employed to produce...

A blank whose basic surface curves are attained by heating and forming a given weight of raw glass; a rough glass blank resembling the finished lens in size and shape. After molding, a precision lens...

An array of refractive microlenses that are round, square and hexagonal and as small as 15 µm. They are used for Hartmann testing, laser diode collimation and other applications that require...

Process that occurs when a polymerized soft plastic rod with higher refractive index is placed in a bath of a lower refractive-index monomer to obtain plastic fibers with a nearly parabolic index...

A coating made up of many layers of material having alternating high and low refractive index. In this way, it is possible to produce coatings with a great variety of properties. These may be...

A form of shearing interferometer that contains a simple wedged (plane-parallel) glass plate with a nonzero optical path difference to create interference between split optical wavefronts. The...

A symbol used to represent the refractive index. It is commonly used with a subscript to represent the wavelength of light.

Nanophotonics is a branch of science and technology that explores the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, typically at dimensions smaller than the wavelength of light. It involves the study and...

Nanoplasmonics is a branch of nanophotonics that focuses on the study and manipulation of optical phenomena at the nanoscale using plasmonic materials and structures. Plasmonics deals with the...

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 uniaxial, birefringent crystal such as calcite or ruby in which the velocity of the extraordinary ray surpasses that of the ordinary ray. This can also be defined as the index of refraction of the...

A Nernst glower, also known simply as a Nernst lamp or Nernst filament, is a type of incandescent lamp or radiant heater based on the Nernst effect. It was invented by the German physicist and...

Nonlinear polarization refers to the phenomenon where the polarization of a material responds nonlinearly to an applied electric field. In linear systems, the polarization of a material is directly...

Sometimes referred to as the surface normal or 'surface norm'; the normal is an axis that forms right angles with a surface that light is incident upon or with other lines. The normal is used to...

Dispersion characterized by an increasing index of refraction in the medium as the frequency of the propagating light increases towards the resonant frequency of the medium. Normal dispersion occurs...