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Photonics Dictionary

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Laue pattern
The photographic record of the diffracted beams formed when heterogeneous x-rays emerging from a pinhole or slit impinge upon one crystal.
LBIC
laser-beam-induced current
LBP
laser beam printer
Lenard tube
An electron-beam tube designed so that the beam can be carried through a portion of the wall of an evacuated enclosure.
lens testing equipment
Lens testing equipment refers to a range of specialized tools and instruments used to evaluate the optical performance, quality, and characteristics of lenses. These instruments are essential for...
lensless Fourier transform hologram
A hologram formed without lenses and with the object and reference points sharing the same plane. In the initial recording, each object point produces fringes having one spatial frequency across the...
lensless microscopy
Lensless microscopy, also known as computational or holographic microscopy, is an imaging technique that captures and reconstructs microscopic images without the use of traditional lenses. Instead of...
lensometer
An ophthalmic instrument used to measure the magnitude and direction of the maximum and minimum powers of a spectacle lens, and mark the optical center of the lens by an ink dot. When the lens to be...
lenticular screen
A rear or front projection screen composed of minute optical surfaces that introduce a spread to the light beam that conforms approximately to the light distribution requirements of the application.
lidar
Lidar, short for light detection and ranging, is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape and...
light chopper -> optical chopper
A mechanical or electrical-electromagnetic device for periodically interrupting or blocking abeam of light for a brief known interval. The three most common chopper types include the tuning fork...
light dispersion
The process whereby white light is separated into its component wavelengths. Light beams of different wavelengths are separated from each other by undergoing a different angular deviation. Prisms and...
light filter
A homogeneous optical medium or coating that transmits only in particular regions of the spectrum. It is used to change or modify the total or relative energy distribution of a beam of light.
light modulator
A device that is designed to modulate a beam of light, usually from a laser source, by acting upon the beam directly. The three general types of devices operate in an acousto-optic, electro-optic or...
light pattern
In optics, a pattern, such as the Buchmann-Meyer pattern, that may be viewed when the record surface is illuminated by a light beam having parallel rays.
light throughput efficiency
The fraction of incident light power in an optical modulator that is available to the output beam.
light valve
With respect to display systems, a device that uses an independent light source and a control-layer medium, the active optical element, to convert an electrical charge image to an optical image....
limiting angular subtense (amin)
The apparent visual angle that divides intrabeam viewing from extended-source viewing.
linear receive optics
Linear receive optics typically refers to the optical components and systems used in the reception (detection) of linearly polarized light signals in various applications, such as optical...
Linnik interference microscope
A Michelson-type interference microscope used to produce interference patterns of reflective specimens through the interference between light reflected by the specimen and that reflected by a...
liquid crystal light valve
A liquid crystal light valve (LCLV), also known as a spatial light modulator (SLM), is an optical device that modulates the intensity, phase, or polarization of light passing through it using liquid...
liquid-phase epitaxy -> epitaxy
A well controlled thin films technique for growing films with good crystal structure in ultra high vacuum environments at very low deposition rates. Epitaxy methods are well known for the growing of...
liquid/fluid optics
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...
lithium triborate nonlinear crystal
Lithium triborate, commonly abbreviated as LBO, is a nonlinear optical crystal widely used in various applications involving frequency conversion of laser light. It is valued for its excellent...
low-coherence interference microscope
An interference microscope that uses a light beam originating from a low-coherence light source. The sample is placed in one interferometer arm, and the other arm provides a reference beam. The...
lumia
A laser effect used especially for laser light shows. Lumia are created by placing a distorting medium such as rippled glass in the path of the laser beam.
Lummer-Gehrcke plate
A high-resolution spectroscopic device commonly used in the early 20th century as a component of double-beam interferometers. Light introduced at one end of the plane-parallel glass plate will be...
Luneburg lens
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...
Mach-Zehnder interferometer
A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an optical device used to measure the phase difference between two collimated beams of light. It is named after the physicists Ludwig Mach and Ludwig Zehnder, who...
magnetic lens
An arranged series of coils, magnets or electromagnets disposed in such a way that the resulting magnetic fields generate a Lorentz force that is used to then focus or deflect beams of rapidly moving...
magnetic rotation spectroscopy
Technique in which the polarization rotation of light, and its relationship to the magnetic field strength can be analyzed and related to various experimental parameters when passed through a...
magneto-optic readout device
A device using the Kerr effect to read back the signals from mechanically recorded tapes and discs. It consists of a light source, optical lenses to focus and direct the light beam, a pair of...
magneto-optic storage
A specific type of storage in which the material to be written on is heated above its transition temperature and switched in a biased field. Reading of the material is determined by the magneto-optic...
major lobe
With respect to a beam, the radiation lobe having the direction of maximum radiation.
Malus's law
A law that uses the square of the cosine between the plane of polarization of a beam of plane-polarized light and the plane of polarization of a polarizing element to calculate the intensity of the...
masks for evaporation/deposition
In the context of thin film deposition processes such as evaporation or sputtering, masks are used to selectively deposit material onto substrates, creating patterns or structures with precise...
mass spectrograph
A device that uses electromagnetic fields to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses. As a beam of charged particles is passed through a mass spectrograph, the result is a...
mass spectrometer
A device used to measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules. It utilizes the Lorentz force generated by external magnetic field on a moving charged particle, in which the...
Matrix optics
The linear relationship between input and output optical fields for a given optical system or application that allows the use of a matrix and matrix algebra to define an optical system, or series of...
MBE
molecular beam epitaxy — A well-controlled thin film technique for growing films with good crystal structure in ultra high vacuum environments at very low deposition rates. MBE is also commonly used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices and solar cells.
medical lasers
Medical lasers are devices that produce intense beams of light with specific characteristics and properties, which are used for various medical applications. These lasers emit light in the form of...
meniscus lens
A meniscus lens is an optical lens that has one side that is concave (curved inward) and the other side that is convex (curved outward). It can be categorized into two types based on its optical...
meta-optics
Meta-optics, also known as metasurface optics or flat optics, is a branch of optics that involves the design, fabrication, and utilization of artificial structures called metasurfaces to control and...
metallic coating
A thin layer of metal deposited on the surface of a substrate. The film may serve as a reflector, beamsplitter, neutral density filter or electromagnetic interference filter.
metallographic microscope
A specially designed microscope for observing the etched surface of a polished metal specimen. The specimen is often laid face down on a horizontal stage and observed from beneath, the illumination...
metasurfaces
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...
Michelson-Morley experiment
An optical experiment carried out conclusively in 1887 that demonstrated that the ether, a hypothetical medium postulated by physicists to explain how light could travel in a wave motion through...
micro ion milling
Process developed for the production of high-resolution patterns in electro- and magneto-optics. These high-generation devices use ion beams and plasma-free radicals.
micro-optics
Micro-optics refers to the design, fabrication, and application of optical components and systems at a microscale level. These components are miniaturized optical elements that manipulate light at a...
microchannel spatial light modulator
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...

Photonics Dictionary

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