Photonics Dictionary

Absolute colorimetric refers to a color management rendering intent used in color profiles and conversion processes, particularly in the context of printing and digital imaging. Absolute...

An absorption hologram is a type of hologram in which the image is formed by variations in the absorption of light within the recording medium. Unlike traditional holograms that rely primarily on...

Acousto-optic deflection refers to a phenomenon where the trajectory of light is altered by acoustic waves propagating through a material. This effect is utilized in acousto-optic devices, which are...

Adaptive deconvolution is a computational method that aims to improve the resolution and fidelity of signals or images that have been degraded by known or unknown factors, such as blur, noise, or...

Transformation of an image, such as a change in position or scale, that does not alter the linearity of the original image.

A device that enlarges and strengthens a signal's output without significantly distorting its original waveshape. There are amplifiers for acoustical, optical and electronic signals.

Analog-to-analog (AA) refers to the process or system that involves the conversion or transmission of analog signals from one form to another, without converting them into digital signals at any...

Analog-to-digital (A/D) is a process that converts continuous analog signals into discrete digital signals. This process coverts analog signals continuously, which vary smoothly over time, into a...

Any photographic medium that, when chemically developed, produces an exact photographic reproduction of the original.

Backscatter refers to the phenomenon in which radiation or waves are scattered backward, opposite to the direction of the incident beam. This occurs when the incident radiation encounters a target or...

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...

Name originally given to the sun's infrared radiation by Sir William Herschel in his Philosophical Transactions of 1800.

Camera Link HS (high speed) is a standard developed for high-speed digital data transmission in machine vision and industrial imaging applications. It is an evolution of the original Camera Link...

The use of the photographic process to produce precision copies of an original image that are many times smaller in size. One of its many applications is in microcircuitry.

Cell migration refers to the process by which cells move from one location to another within tissues or across biological barriers. This fundamental biological process is essential during various...

That viewpoint at which the angular subtenses of points in the picture are identical to angular subtenses of the original points in the scene, at the camera lens.

Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique used in laser physics to amplify ultrashort laser pulses to high energies without causing damage to the amplifying medium. The method was first...

An imaging process in which the single opening of a simple pinhole camera is replaced with many openings called, collectively, the aperture. The recorded picture, which consists of many overlapping...

The transmission of a color photograph by separating the colors into varying intensities of red, blue and green, and then sending separate transmissions of the three color signals to a receiving...

A television system that is capable of producing an image whose colors approximate the colors of the original, by the use of additive color mixing of the three primary colors.

A computer-generated hologram (CGH) is a holographic image produced using computational methods and algorithms, rather than traditional optical techniques. CGHs are generated entirely in digital form...

A corner cube, also known as a corner reflector or retroreflector prism, is a type of optical device used to reflect light or electromagnetic waves back towards their source with minimal deviation in...

Solar regions characterized by low density and open magnetic fields where high-speed solar wind streams originate. Originally believed to be "M'' regions, coronal holes are the precursors of the...

A method of resampling in which a 16-pixel neighborhood around a given pixel from the original image is used to calculate the final brightness value of that pixel in the corrected image.

Popular process for silicon and polycrystalline production that consists of an alteration of the original state of a substance; thus, single-crystal materials can be used to form a polycrystal.

The process of reducing the size of an image by removing a certain proportion of the samples produced from the original image.

The ray refracted by a sphere of transparent material that travels back as closely as possible to the original path formed by the incident ray.

Dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) is an advanced technique in ultrafast laser technology used to amplify femtosecond laser pulses to extremely high energies while maintaining...

Any material of a macromolecular nature that can stretch at room temperature to more than twice its length and return to approximately its original shape when stress is released.

A cathode-ray tube that increases the brightness or size of an image or forms a visible image from invisible radiation. The focal plane for the optical image is a large, light-sensitive, cold...

An instrument used to print an optical image on a specially treated paper. Light and dark portions of the original image are illustrated by electrostatically charged and uncharged portions of the...

1. The use of an electronic microdensitometer to measure points of equal density on a photographic deposit. 2. A technique that simplifies a picture's density pattern by making a single isodensity...

The addition to the information signal in communications of redundant bits that enable the originally encoded message to be decoded without degradation of the data. In compact disc technology, the...

A fluorescent screen refers to a phosphorescent or fluorescent-coated surface that emits visible light when exposed to other forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays or ultraviolet light....

A device used to scan, with a small, intensely bright spot, portions of a picture surface and to transform the original picture into a series of electrical signals. In optical character recognition,...

A night-vision device that uses one or more infrared transducers to scan a scene in the 3- to 5-µm or 8- to 12-µm spectral region, convert the infrared radiation to electronic data and...

A phenomenon that occurs in WDM and DWDM systems when three closely spaced signal wavelengths near the zero-dispersion wavelength interact with each other, producing a fourth wavelength that...

The substrate upon which a diffraction grating will be ruled. It must be dimensionally stable, and the surface must be polished to an accurate flat or spherical form as required by the grating. The...

Harmonic generation refers to a nonlinear optical process in which incoming photons interact with a material and produce new photons at integer multiples of the frequency of the incoming photons....

High harmonic generation (HHG) refers to a nonlinear optical process in which intense laser light interacts with a gaseous medium, typically an atom or a molecule, to produce harmonics of the...

A holographic camera, also known as a holographic imaging system or holographic recorder, is a specialized device used to capture 3D holographic images of objects or scenes. Unlike conventional...

Holography is a technique used to capture and reconstruct three-dimensional images using the principles of interference and diffraction of light. Unlike conventional photography, which records only...

A camera that uses an image converter tube in such a way that voltage waveforms applied to internal electrodes cause the original image to be switched on and off very rapidly, thus offering time...

An image intensifier, also known as an image intensification tube or image intensification device, is a specialized electronic device used to amplify low-light-level images to make them visible to...

A measure of the closeness with which an optical image is capable of resembling the original object. The factors that affect image quality are lens aberrations, diffraction, dirt and stray light...

Filtering procedures aimed at estimating the original image by removing the blurring and noise suppression that occur during image processing.