Photonics Dictionary

An optical instrument for forming the spectrum of a light source and recording it on a film. The dispersing medium may be a prism or a diffraction grating. A concave grating requires no other means...

A kind of spectrograph in which some form of detector, other than a photographic film, is used to measure the distribution of radiation in a particular wavelength region.

Sputtering equipment is machinery used in the process of physical vapor deposition (PVD), specifically sputtering. Sputtering is a method of depositing thin films of material onto a substrate surface...

A sputtering target is a solid material used in the process of physical vapor deposition (PVD), specifically sputtering. Sputtering targets are typically made of metals, metal alloys, or compounds...

A type of camera that has scales or other arrangements by which successive exposures can be lined up and equally spaced on a sheet of film. It is used in the preparation of microfiche copies of...

A substrate refers to a material or surface upon which another material or process is applied or deposited. In various fields, such as electronics, biology, chemistry, and manufacturing, the term...

An imaging technique in which an object moving through an interference field formed in space scatters light and is spatially recorded on a photographic film as a hologram. If the interference field...

The color process that is used to form positive color cine films by dye transfer or imbibition, based on the use of separate matrices that superimpose yellow, magenta and cyan dye images on the final...

A term referring to various processes for forming visible images outside of a camera to be photographed on ordinary film. Unlike regular infrared photography, thermal photography is an indirect...

The production of an image on a magnetic film that is exposed to infrared radiation and heated to a point above Curie temperature in regions of the image. The image is contacted with paramagnetic...

A display device having a thermoplastic film as the control layer medium. The film, moving from a playoff reel, is scanned by an electron gun and melted by an RF heating unit. Deformation of the film...

A screen composed of a sheet of diffusing plastic material that reveals excellent image detail for close viewing. It is efficient for use with microfilm readers.

A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a powerful microscopy technique that uses a beam of electrons to create high-resolution images of extremely thin samples. In a TEM, electrons are...

An image affixed to a transparent photographic film or plate by photographic, printing or chemical methods. It may be viewed by transmitted light.

A metal box with an opal glass front enclosing a lamp, used for viewing color transparencies or x-ray films.

Light that is emitted from a phosphor film applied to the surface of a three-layer thin film, respectively metal, oxide and metal.

A set of samples used in the analysis of multielement thin films.

A multilayer antireflective thin-film coating, so called because its reflectance rises steeply at wavelengths above and below a narrow band at zero. The v-coat is particularly useful in high-power...

A vacuum chamber is a sealed enclosure from which air and other gases are removed to create a low-pressure environment, typically close to or at a complete vacuum. These chambers are often...

A device that serves to detect the presence of vacuum ultraviolet radiation. It may be photographic film, a thermopile, ion chamber, vacuum photodiode, photomultiplier or channel electron multiplier.

A scanning technique in which the optical density of the film being scanned controls the speed of deflection of the scanning beam.

Videography refers to the process of capturing moving images and recording them in a digital format. It involves the use of video cameras, lighting equipment, and audio recording devices to create...

A filter, pale purple in color, used in black and white photography to display the brightness values of a subject being recorded on film.

The Weissenberg method, named after the German physicist Karl Weissenberg, is a technique used in x-ray crystallography for obtaining high-quality diffraction patterns from single crystals. This...

One of various types of fluorescent screens used to detect x-ray radiation. Photographic film is mildly sensitive to x-rays, but much more sensitive to light. Hence, in photographing x-ray...

The bending of x-rays by the regular layers of molecules in a crystal acting like a very small diffraction grating. The diffraction pattern so obtained and recorded on film provides a means for...

The arc formed when the rare gas xenon is excited electrically and emits a brilliant white light. Xenon is used to fill electronic and stroboscopic flashlamps, and also large discharge tubes for...