Photonics Dictionary

A technique used in astronomy that requires a radio telescope to be directed at a point in the sky west of the object under observation. The Earth's rotation causes the object to drift through the...

An astronomical scanning technique for capturing images of stars without moving the sensor. To perform a drift scan, a CCD sensor's readout rate must be synchronized with the motion of celestial...

The minimum electrical current input needed to initiate lasing.

The process whereby a blank or disc is heated to a sufficiently high temperature to sag into a mold having a desired curvature.

An image-processing device that scans in a straight line parallel to the axis of a rotating cylinder to which the material to be recorded is affixed.

In a dual-ring local area network, a node that is connected both to the primary, active ring and also to a secondary ring that provides redundancy in case of cable or system failure.

A package for electronic components that is suited for automated assembly into printed circuit boards. The DIP is characterized by two rows of external connecting terminals or pins, which are...

A gas laser equipped with Brewster windows and concave mirrors (having unlike reflective properties) at each end of the tube to produce two separate wavelengths at the same time.

Dual-axis laser is a laser device or system capable of emitting laser beams along two orthogonal axes (typically X and Y axes) concurrently. This allows for precise control and manipulation of the...

Dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) is an advanced technique in ultrafast laser technology used to amplify femtosecond laser pulses to extremely high energies while maintaining...

Spectrophotometry in which radiation of two separate wavelengths, usually one in an absorption band and the other not, pass through the specimen. The resulting data allows correction for attenuation...

A material's ability to undergo plastic deformation, specifically elongation, without fracturing.

Propagation of electromagnetic waves through the Earth's atmosphere in a path that conforms to the curvature of the Earth due to atmospheric thermal inversion. Regions of the atmosphere act as a...

In data communications, the simultaneous operation of a circuit in both directions is known as full duplex; if only one transmitter can send at a time, the system is called half duplex.

In atmospheric optics, the almost total blocking of light transmission in the atmosphere due to the scattering and absorption of the light by dust particles.

Also duty factor, duty ratio. The product of the pulse duration and the pulse repetition frequency of a wave composed of pulses that occur at regular intervals.

For a detector, the amount of time alotted for the observation of one location.

A laser using a dye solution as its active medium. Its output is a short pulse of broad spectral content and its achievable gain is high. Dye lasers function at room temperature. Synchronous pumping...

The subtractive imbibing process of transferring color prints on paper whereby the dyes from three separately prepared images are transferred to one sheet of paper to form the color print.

A type of erasable data storage device that uses a medium deposited on the disc in two layers, each dyed to absorb a different wavelength of laser light. To record data, the lower layer is heated by...

The superimposition of a pilot object on each hologram. The fixed relative position of the scanning and pilot beam during the recording process ensures that sensing and fixing the pilot beam position...

Stress applied to an optical fiber at a constant rate.

An optical correlator incorporating a binary phase-only spatial light modulator made from an iron garnet magneto-optic solid crystal and used in target recognition systems.

A spectroscopic technique used to display the intensity of an optical pulse as functions of time and frequency simultaneously.

A type of mosaic detector array that combines features of scanning and staring sensors by using a small rapid scanning motion (see saccadic motion) over a few pixels at a time.

The theoretical explanation and analysis of the interactions between electron waves and crystals used in studying electron diffraction.

In electrical equipment, power variations that are temporary (as opposed to the permanent, cumulative effects of drift).

Observed phenomenon of a small developed image with higher density than a larger image because of variation in photographic plate densities with variations in size of opening.

A lens mounting with eccentric rings that may be rotated to shift the axis of the lens to a prescribed position.

A grating that serves to provide higher resolution and dispersion than the average grating, and still has a greater free spectral range than either the Fabry-Perot etalon or the reflection echelon.

A specialized form of diffraction grating consisting of assembled glass plates of equal thickness that resemble a flight of stairs. The light enters through the largest plate at the end and emerges...