Photonics Dictionary: F

The Faraday effect, named after the English scientist Michael Faraday, is a phenomenon in physics where the polarization plane of light is rotated when the light passes through a transparent medium...

A femtosecond laser is a type of laser that emits ultrashort pulses of light with durations on the order of femtoseconds, where one femtosecond is equal to 10-15 seconds. These lasers are capable of...

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of optical filter that is inscribed or "written" into the core of an optical fiber. It consists of a periodic modulation of the refractive index along the length...

Fiber joints, also known as fiber optic splices, refer to the connection points where two optical fibers are permanently joined together to form a continuous optical transmission path. These joints...

A fiber laser is a type of laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth ions such as erbium, ytterbium, or neodymium. Fiber lasers generate coherent light through...

A fiber optic attenuator is a passive optical component designed to attenuate or decrease the intensity of an optical signal traveling through a fiber optic link. It achieves this by introducing a...

A fiber optic cable assembly refers to a complete unit consisting of optical fibers, connectors, protective jackets, and other components that are assembled together to facilitate the transmission of...

A fiber optic transceiver, often simply referred to as an "optical transceiver," is a device used in fiber optic communications to transmit and receive data over optical fibers. It integrates both a...

The use of thin flexible glass or plastic fibers as wave guides — or "light pipes" — to channel light from one location to another. Fiber optics is based off of the principle of total...

A fiber-coupled LED (light-emitting diode) refers to an LED device that is optically coupled to an optical fiber for the purpose of efficient light transmission. In this configuration, the LED serves...

A fiber-coupled photoconductive antenna (FCPA) is a type of optoelectronic device that combines a photoconductive antenna with optical fibers for the purpose of generating or detecting terahertz...

Fluoride fibers are optical fibers made from fluoride-based materials, typically fluoride glasses or crystalline fluoride compounds. These fibers are characterized by their unique optical properties,...

Free-space optics (FSO), also known as optical wireless communication or optical wireless networking, refers to the transmission of data using modulated beams of light through free space (air or a...

Freeform optics refers to the design and fabrication of optical surfaces that do not follow traditional symmetric shapes, such as spheres or aspheres. Unlike standard optical components with...

The frequency domain is a concept used in signal processing and analysis to represent signals and data in terms of their frequency components. In contrast to the time domain, where signals are...