Photonics Dictionary: B

A ball lens is a small, spherical optical component typically made of glass or other transparent materials. It is characterized by its spherical shape, with both its front and back surfaces forming...

Beam profiling is a technique used to characterize and analyze the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam. It involves measuring and visualizing how the optical power or intensity is...

A beam shaper is an optical device or system designed to modify the spatial profile or intensity distribution of a laser or light beam. The goal is to transform the incoming beam into a desired shape...

A band of light that appears along the outer edge of a transparent material under microscopic investigation and that moves toward higher refractive indices as the microscope's focus is raised, and...

A small convergent lens, located between the objective and eyepiece of a microscope, that focuses an image of the upper focal plane of the objective in the focal plane of the eyepiece. It is commonly...

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...

Binoculars are optical instruments used for magnifying distant objects by using two parallel telescopes mounted side by side. They allow users to see distant objects more clearly and in greater...

Also called proximity focus image intensifier. A compact image intensifier that utilizes a microchannel plate intensification stage. This is an in-line device that does not invert the image.

The loss of focus of a camera sensor because of excessive brightness, characterized by the enlargement of spot size and halation on a cathode-ray tube.

A blur circle refers to the out-of-focus region in an image captured by an optical system. When an object in a scene is not in perfect focus, its image is spread out into a circular shape on the...

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...

A convex lens that brings an incident bundle of rays to a focus to produce intense heat at the focus.