Photonics Dictionary: B

In ophthalmic practice, an instrument that determines the boundaries of the field of view. It is composed of a 2-m square of black velvet with a white spot center at which the patient, 1 m away,...

A type of scratch.

A photometer screen that contains a diaphragm of paper or parchment with a translucent central spot of oil or paraffin.

A device containing two opposed quartz wedges of equal angle, one wedge being movable along its length by a micrometer screw. The wedges are cut so that their fast directions are along, and...

The principle stating that two diffraction screens, one being exactly the negative of the other, will form the same diffraction patterns.

Refers to a display or screen that is illuminated from behind; the light is transmitted as opposed to reflected.

In semiconductor physics, the term bandgap refers to the energy range in a material where no electronic states are allowed. It represents the energy difference between the valence band, which is the...

Bathymetric lidar is a remote sensing technique used to measure the depth of water bodies and map underwater terrain features. It employs lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, which uses...

In computer graphics, the point on the display screen where the electron beam is located before the display instruction is executed. On directed beam display points, vectors and other graphic...

A characteristic of optical fiber used to calculate the fiber's ability to maintain polarization. The beat length describes the length required for the polarization to rotate 360 degrees. For a given...

Two formulas used in diffractometer analysis, the first giving the individual diffraction patterns of each aperture, the second representing the constant of the degree of an incoherent circular...

A facility selected by mutual agreement of the user and the prospective vendor to test a prototype before it is offered for sale.

A device having a pair of decentered lenses, one for each eye, that focuses on a single object as a magnifier. It is often supplied with a forehead fixture or an elastic headband to leave the hands...

Light interference fringes that can be viewed on a screen near a biprism.

In computer graphics, the assignment of each pixel on a display screen to its own switch in the computer memory.

A blackbody source, often simply referred to as a blackbody, is a theoretical or practical physical object that absorbs all electromagnetic radiation incident upon it and emits radiation in a...

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that forms at temperatures close to absolute zero. It is named after Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, who independently predicted the...

Crystal growth method that resembles static freeze, but that induces growth by removing the ampoule from the furnace so that the freezing-point temperature gradient is unchanged during the growth...

An instrument for measuring the brightness (luminance) of a scene. It may be a spot meter, covering an area of a degree or less, or an averaging meter, covering a broad area of the scene. Brightness...

The degree to which a pixel in a digital image represents the analog brightness of the corresponding point in the original image. It is dependent largely on the number of bits devoted to representing...

Brillouin microscopy is a non-invasive imaging technique that utilizes Brillouin scattering to measure the mechanical properties of materials at the microscale. This advanced optical technique...