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laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

topics.

A

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

, additive manufacturing * Abnormal reflection * Above-threshold ionization *

Absorption spectroscopy Absorption spectroscopy refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating fi ...

Accelerator physics Accelerator physics is a branch of applied physics, concerned with designing, building and operating particle accelerators. As such, it can be described as the study of motion, manipulation and observation of relativistic charged particle beams ...

Acoustic microscopy Acoustic microscopy is microscopy that employs very high or ultra high frequency ultrasound. Acoustic microscopes operate non-destructively and penetrate most solid materials to make visible images of internal features, including defects such as ...

Acousto-optic deflector An acousto-optic deflector (AOD) spatially controls the optical beam. In the operation of an acousto-optic deflector the power driving the acoustic transducer is kept on, at a constant level, while the acoustic frequency is varied to deflect the be ...

Acousto-optic modulator An acousto-optic modulator (AOM), also called a Bragg cell or an acousto-optic deflector (AOD), uses the acousto-optic effect to diffract and shift the frequency of light using sound waves (usually at radio-frequency). They are used in lasers ...

Acousto-optical spectrometer An acousto-optical spectrometer (AOS) is based on the diffraction of light by ultrasonic waves. A piezoelectric transducer, driven by the RF signal (from the receiver), generates an acoustic wave in a crystal (the so-called Bragg-cell). This a ...

Acousto-optics Acousto-optics is a branch of physics that studies the interactions between sound waves and light waves, especially the diffraction of laser light by ultrasound (or sound in general) through an ultrasonic grating. Introduction Optics has had a v ...

Active laser medium The active laser medium (also called gain medium or lasing medium) is the source of optical gain within a laser. The gain results from the stimulated emission of photons through electronic or molecular transitions to a lower energy state from a h ...

Active optics Active optics is a technology used with reflecting telescopes developed in the 1980s, which actively shapes a telescope's mirrors to prevent deformation due to external influences such as wind, temperature, and mechanical stress. Without active op ...

Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System The AGR-20 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is a design conversion of Hydra 70 unguided rockets with a laser guidance kit to turn them into precision-guided munitions (PGMs). APKWS is approximately one-third the cost and one-third ...

* Advanced Tactical Laser *

Afocal system In optics an afocal system (a system without focus) is an optical system that produces no net convergence or divergence of the beam, i.e. has an infinite effective focal length. This type of system can be created with a pair of optical elements wh ...

* Airborne laser *

Airborne wind turbine An airborne wind turbine is a design concept for a wind turbine with a rotor supported in the air without a tower, thus benefiting from the higher velocity and persistence of wind at high altitudes, while avoiding the expense of tower construction ...

* Airy beam * ALKA * All gas-phase iodine laser *

Ambient ionization Ambient ionization is a form of ionization in which ions are formed in an ion source outside the mass spectrometer without sample preparation or separation. Ions can be formed by extraction into charged electrospray droplets, thermally desorbed a ...

Amplified spontaneous emission Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) or superluminescence is light, produced by spontaneous emission, that has been optically amplified by the process of stimulated emission in a gain medium. It is inherent in the field of random lasers. Origins ...

Analytical chemistry Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...

Aneutronic fusion Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power in which very little of the energy released is carried by neutrons. While the lowest-threshold nuclear fusion reactions release up to 80% of their energy in the form of neutrons, aneutronic reactions ...

Antiproton Decelerator The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) is a storage ring at the CERN laboratory near Geneva. It was built from the Antiproton Collector (AC) to be a successor to the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) and started operation in the year 2000. Antiprotons ...

Apache Arrowhead The Apache Arrowhead (also Modernized Target Acquisition and Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor or M-TADS/PNVS), is an integrated targeting and night vision system developed by Lockheed Martin for the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. ...

Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation The Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation, or APOLLO, is a project at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. It is an extension and advancement of previous Lunar Laser Ranging experiments, which use retroreflectors on the ...

Arago spot Arago may refer to: People * Aragó, a family name of the kings of the Aragonese Crown * Étienne Arago (1802–1892), French journalist, theater director, and politician; brother of Juan, François, and Jacques * François Arago (1786–1853), F ...

Argon fluoride laser The argon fluoride laser (ArF laser) is a particular type of excimer laser, which is sometimes (more correctly) called an exciplex laser. With its 193-nanometer wavelength, it is a deep ultraviolet laser, which is commonly used in the production o ...

Argus laser Argus was a two-beam high power infrared neodymium doped silica glass laser with a output aperture built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1976 for the study of inertial confinement fusion. Argus advanced the study of laser-target inter ...

Asterix IV laser The Asterix IV laser in Prague (commonly referred to by the acronym PALS for Prague Asterix Laser System) is a high power photolytically pumped iodine gas laser capable of producing ~300 to 500 picosecond long pulses of light at the fundamental line ...

Astrophysical maser An astrophysical maser is a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission, typically in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This emission may arise in molecular clouds, comets, planetary atmospheres, stellar at ...

Atmospheric-pressure laser ionization Atmospheric pressure laser ionization is an atmospheric pressure ionization method for mass spectrometry (MS). Laser light in the UV range is used to ionize molecules in a resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) process. It is a selectiv ...

Atom interferometer An atom interferometer is an interferometer which uses the Wave–particle duality, wave character of atoms. Similar to optical interferometers, atom interferometers measure the difference in phase between atomic matter waves along different paths. ...

Atom laser An atom laser is a coherent state of propagating atoms. They are created out of a Bose–Einstein condensate of atoms that are output coupled using various techniques. Much like an optical laser, an atom laser is a coherent beam that behaves like ...

* Atom probe *

Atomic clock An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwee ...

Atomic coherence Atomic may refer to: * Of or relating to the atom, the smallest particle of a chemical element that retains its chemical properties * Atomic physics, the study of the atom * Atomic Age, also known as the "Atomic Era" * Atomic scale, distances com ...

Atomic fountain An atomic fountain is a cloud of atoms that is tossed upwards in the Earth's gravitational field by lasers. If it were visible, it would resemble the water in a fountain. While weightless in the toss, the atoms are measured to set the frequency o ...

Atomic line filter An atomic line filter (ALF) is a more effective optical band-pass filter used in the physical sciences for filtering electromagnetic radiation with precision, accuracy, and minimal signal strength loss. Atomic line filters work via the absorptio ...

Atomic ratio The atomic ratio is a measure of the ratio of atoms of one kind (i) to another kind (j). A closely related concept is the atomic percent (or at.%), which gives the percentage of one kind of atom relative to the total number of atoms. The molecule ...

Atomic spectroscopy Atomic spectroscopy is the study of the electromagnetic radiation absorbed and emitted by atoms. Since unique elements have characteristic (signature) spectra, atomic spectroscopy, specifically the electromagnetic spectrum or mass spectrum, is appl ...

Atomic vapor laser isotope separation Atomic vapor laser isotope separation, or AVLIS, is a method by which specially tuned lasers are used to separate isotopes of uranium using selective ionization of hyperfine transitions. A similar technology, using molecules instead of atoms, is ...

Audience scanning Audience scanning (sometimes called "crowd scanning") occurs when a laser beam is directed toward the people observing a laser show or display. Although this is preferred for many laser effects such as tunnels, it is potentially dangerous due to th ...

Autler–Townes effect In spectroscopy, the Autler–Townes effect (also known as AC Stark effect), is a dynamical Stark effect corresponding to the case when an oscillating electric field (e.g., that of a laser) is tuned in resonance (or close) to the transition frequen ...

* Autologous patient-specific tumor antigen response * Automated guided vehicle *

Autonomous cruise control system Adaptive cruise control (ACC) is an available cruise control advanced driver-assistance system for road vehicles that automatically adjusts the vehicle speed to maintain a safe distance from vehicles ahead. As of 2019, it is also called by 20 u ...

Avalanche photodiode An avalanche photodiode (APD) is a highly sensitive semiconductor photodiode detector that exploits the photoelectric effect to convert light into electricity. From a functional standpoint, they can be regarded as the semiconductor analog of phot ...

Axicon An axicon is a specialized type of lens (optics), lens which has a Cone (geometry), conical surface. An axicon transforms a laser beam into a ring shaped distribution. They can be convex or concave and be made of any optical material. The combinat ...

B

Babinet's principle In physics, Babinet's principle states that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to that from a hole of the same size and shape except for the overall forward beam intensity. It was formulated in the 1800s by French physicist Ja ...

Ballistic photon Ballistic light, also known as ballistic photons, is photons of light that have traveled through a scattering (turbid) medium in a straight line. When pulses of laser light pass through a turbid medium such as fog or body tissue, most of the phot ...

Bandwidth-limited pulse A bandwidth-limited pulse (also known as Fourier-transform-limited pulse, or more commonly, transform-limited pulse) is a pulse of a wave that has the minimum possible duration for a given spectral bandwidth. Bandwidth-limited pulses have a con ...

Bandwidth (signal processing) Bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower frequencies in a continuous band of frequencies. It is typically measured in hertz, and depending on context, may specifically refer to ''passband bandwidth'' or ''baseband bandwidth''. ...

Barcode reader A barcode reader is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes, decode the data contained in the barcode to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor for translating optical impulses into e ...

Basir Basir is an Iranian laser-guided, 155 mm high explosive Shell (projectile), artillery shell designed to destroy enemy tanks, vehicles and other moving or non-moving targets with high precision. These shells were unveiled on January 30, 2012, o ...

Beam-powered propulsion Beam-powered propulsion, also known as directed energy propulsion, is a class of aircraft or spacecraft propulsion that uses energy beamed to the spacecraft from a remote power plant to provide energy. The beam is typically either a microwave or a ...

Beam diameter The beam diameter or beam width of an electromagnetic beam is the diameter along any specified line that is perpendicular to the beam axis and intersects it. Since beams typically do not have sharp edges, the diameter can be defined in many differ ...

Beam dump A beam dump, also known as a beam block, a beam stop, or a beam trap, is a device designed to absorb the energy of photons or other particles within an energetic beam. Types of beam dumps Beam blocks Beam blocks are simple optical elements ...

Beam expander Beam expanders are optical devices that take a collimated beam of light and expand its size (or, used in reverse, reduce its size). In laser physics they are used either as intracavity or extracavity elements. They can be telescopic in nature or ...

* Beam homogenizer *

Beam parameter product In laser science, the beam parameter product (BPP) is the product of a laser beam's divergence angle (half-angle) and the radius of the beam at its narrowest point (the beam waist). The BPP quantifies the quality of a laser beam, and how well it can ...

Beamz The Beamz is a laser-based music device. It is a W-shaped table-top optical control device with several laser beams. Users operate the device by using their hands to interrupt the beams. History The product was created by musician and record prod ...

Big Bang Observer The Big Bang Observer (BBO) is a proposed successor to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) by the European Space Agency. The primary scientific goal is the observation of gravitational waves from the time shortly after the Big Bang, b ...

Biophotonics The term biophotonics denotes a combination of biology and photonics, with photonics being the science and technology of generation, manipulation, and detection of photons, quantum units of light. Photonics is related to electronics and photons. P ...

Biosensor A biosensor is an analytical device, used for the detection of a chemical substance, that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector. The ''sensitive biological element'', e.g. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell rece ...

Black silicon Black silicon is a semiconductor material, a surface modification of silicon with very low reflectivity and correspondingly high absorption of visible (and infrared) light. The modification was discovered in the 1980s as an unwanted side effect ...

Blood irradiation therapy Blood irradiation therapy is an alternative medical procedure in which the blood is exposed to low level light (often laser light) for therapeutic reasons. The practice was originally developed in the United States, but most recent research on i ...

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...

Blue laser A blue laser is a laser that emits electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 360 and 480 nanometers, which the human eye sees as blue or violet. Blue beams are produced by helium-cadmium gas lasers at 441.6 nm, and argon-ion lase ...

Boeing Laser Avenger Boeing Laser Avenger is an infrared laser system (with power levels somewhere in the tens of kilowatts range) mounted on an AN/TWQ-1 Avenger combat vehicle developed by Boeing Combat Systems in Huntsville, Alabama. Laser Avenger integrates a direct ...

Boeing NC-135 The Boeing NC-135 and NKC-135 are special versions of the Boeing C-135 Stratolifter and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker modified to operate on several different programs. Operational history Readiness Program In support of the U.S. Test Readiness P ...

Boeing YAL-1 The Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed (formerly Airborne Laser) weapons system was a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) mounted inside a modified military Boeing 747-400F. It was primarily designed as a missile defense syste ...

Bubblegram A bubblegram (also known as laser crystal, 3D crystal engraving or vitrography) is a solid block of glass or transparent plastic that has been exposed to laser beams to generate three-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3 ...

C

CLidar The CLidar is a scientific instrument used for measuring particulates (aerosols) in the lower atmosphere. CLidar stands for camera lidar, which in turn is a portmanteau of "light" and "radar". It is a form of remote sensing and used for atmospheri ...

* CALIPSO, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations *

Calligraphic projection Calligraphic projection is a system for displaying or projecting an image composed of a beam of light or electrons directly tracing the image, as opposed to sweeping in raster graphics, raster order over the entire display surface, as in a standar ...

Calutron A calutron is a mass spectrometer originally designed and used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest Lawrence during the Manhattan Project and was based on his earlier invention, the cyclotron. Its name was derive ...

Carbon dioxide laser The carbon-dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed. It was invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964 and is still one of the most useful types of laser. Carbon-dioxide lasers are the highest-power continuou ...

Carrier generation and recombination In the solid-state physics of semiconductors, carrier generation and carrier recombination are processes by which mobile charge carriers (electrons and electron holes) are created and eliminated. Carrier generation and recombination processes are ...

Catastrophic optical damage Catastrophic optical damage (COD), or catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD), is a failure mode of high-power semiconductor lasers. It occurs when the semiconductor junction is overloaded by exceeding its power density and absorbs too much of the ...

Cauterization Cauterization (or cauterisation, or cautery) is a medical practice or technique of burning a part of a body to remove or close off a part of it. It destroys some tissue in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, remove an undesired growth, o ...

* Cavity ring-down laser absorption spectroscopy *

Ceilometer A ceilometer is a device that uses a laser or other light source to determine the height of a cloud ceiling or cloud base. Ceilometers can also be used to measure the aerosol concentration within the atmosphere. A ceilometer that uses laser light ...

* Chaos in optical systems *

Chemical laser A chemical laser is a laser that obtains its energy from a chemical reaction. Chemical lasers can reach continuous wave output with power reaching to megawatt levels. They are used in industry for cutting and drilling. Common examples of chemical ...

Chemical oxygen iodine laser A chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) is a near–infrared chemical laser. As the beam is infrared, it cannot be seen with the naked eye. It is capable of output power scaling up to megawatts in continuous mode. Its output wavelength is 1315 ...

Chirped mirror A chirped mirror is a dielectric mirror with chirped spaces—spaces of varying depth designed to reflect varying wavelengths of lights—between the dielectric layers (stack). Chirped mirrors are used in applications like lasers to reflect ...

Chirped pulse amplification Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique for amplifying an ultrashort pulse, ultrashort laser pulse up to the petawatt level, with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally and spectrally, then amplified, and then compressed again. The ...

Clementine (spacecraft) ''Clementine'' (officially called the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE)) was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (previously the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization) and NASA, launched o ...

Cloud seeding Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical p ...

Coherence (physics) In physics, two wave sources are coherent if their frequency and waveform are identical. Coherence is an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e., temporally or spatially constant) interference. It contains several distinct concepts, ...

Coherence length In physics, coherence length is the propagation distance over which a coherent wave (e.g. an electromagnetic wave) maintains a specified degree of coherence. Wave interference is strong when the paths taken by all of the interfering waves differ ...

Coherence time For an electromagnetic wave, the coherence time is the time over which a propagating wave (especially a laser or maser beam) may be considered coherent, meaning that its phase is, on average, predictable. In long-distance transmission systems, ...

Coherent addition Coherent addition (or coherent combining) of lasers is a method of power scaling. It allows increasing the output power and brightness of single-transversal mode laser. Usually, the term coherent addition applies to fiber lasers. As the ability ...

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy Coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy, also called Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectroscopy (CARS), is a form of spectroscopy used primarily in chemistry, physics and related fields. It is sensitive to the same vibrational signatures of ...

* Coherent backscattering * Coherent perfect absorber, anti-laser * Coherent spectroscopy *

Collimator A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction (i.e., make collimated light or parallel rays), or to cause the spati ...

Colloidal crystal A colloidal crystal is an ordered array of colloid particles and fine grained materials analogous to a standard crystal whose repeating subunits are atoms or molecules. A natural example of this phenomenon can be found in the gem opal, where sphere ...

Color LaserWriter The Color LaserWriter was a line of PostScript four-color laser printers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. in the mid-1990s. These printers were compatible with PCs and Apple's own Macintosh line of computers; these printers were also able ...

* Color engraving *

Common Infrared Countermeasures program CIRCM, the Common Infrared Countermeasures program, is a United States Army initiative intended to develop a lightweight, low-cost and modular laser-based infrared protection system for U.S. helicopters and light fixed-wing aircraft. The technology ...

Compact Disc player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or aud ...

* Compatible Toner Cartridge *

Computed tomography laser mammography Computed tomography laser mammography (CTLM) is the trademark of Imaging Diagnostic Systems, Inc. (IDSI, United States) for its optical tomographic technique for female breast imaging. This medical imaging technique uses laser energy in the ne ...

Computer Output to Laser Disc Enterprise report management (ERM or ERP) systems support very high-volume generation, handling and storage of reports and documents. Many ERM systems are used for online customer self-service document generation and delivery. History ERM started o ...

Confocal laser scanning microscopy Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a s ...

Confocal microscopy Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a s ...

* Containment field *

Continuous scan laser Doppler vibrometry Continuous-scan laser Doppler vibrometry (CSLDV) is a method of using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) in which the laser beam is swept across the surface of a test subject to capture the motion of a surface at many points simultaneously. This i ...

Continuous wave A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or particle ...

Coordinate-measuring machine A coordinate measuring machine (CMM) is a device that measures the geometry of physical objects by sensing discrete points on the surface of the object with a probe. Various types of probes are used in CMMs, the most common being mechanical and l ...

Copper vapor laser Copper vapor laser (CVL) uses vapors of copper as the lasing medium in a 4-level laser. It produces green laser light at 510.6 nm and yellow laser light at 578.2 nm. The pulse width is typically from 5 to 60 ns, and peak power from 50 ...

* Core/Shell Semiconductor Nanocrystals * Corneal Waveform technology *

Coupling parameter The coupling parameter of the resonator specifies the part of the energy of the laser field, which is output at each round-trip. The coupling parameter should not be confused with the round-trip loss, which refers to the part of the energy which i ...

Crystal oven A crystal oven is a temperature-controlled chamber used to maintain the quartz crystal in electronic crystal oscillators at a constant temperature, in order to prevent changes in the frequency due to variations in ambient temperature. An oscill ...

Cyclic ozone Cyclic ozone is a theoretically predicted form of ozone. Like ordinary ozone (O3), it would have three oxygen atoms. It would differ from ordinary ozone in how those three oxygen atoms are arranged. In ordinary ozone, the atoms are arranged in ...

Cyclops laser Cyclops was a high-power laser built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1975. It was the second laser constructed in the lab's ''Laser'' program, which aimed to study inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The Cyclops was a sing ...

D

* Dark state *

David Laserscanner DAVID Laserscanner is a software package for low-cost 3D laser scanning. It allows scanning and digitizing of three-dimensional objects using a camera (e.g. a web cam), a hand-held line laser (i.e. one that projects a line, not just a point), and ...

Dazer Laser Dazer Laser is a family of non-lethal, ocular distraction (ocular interrupter) devices, or dazzlers, which have been designed and engineered by Laser Energetics, Inc. (LEI). Products There were three products in the Dazer Laser range: * Defender � ...

* Dazzler (weapon) *

Defence Research and Development Organisation The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India ...

* Delayed extraction *

Dental laser A dental laser is a type of laser designed specifically for use in oral surgery or dentistry. In the United States, the use of lasers on the gums was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the early 1990s, and use on hard tissue lik ...

* Detonator *

Diamond anvil cell A diamond anvil cell (DAC) is a high-pressure device used in geology, engineering, and materials science experiments. It enables the compression of a small (sub-millimeter-sized) piece of material to extreme pressures, typically up to around 1 ...

Diamond blade A diamond blade is a saw blade which has diamonds fixed on its edge for cutting hard or abrasive materials. There are many types of diamond blade, and they have many uses, including cutting stone, concrete, asphalt, bricks, coal balls, glass, an ...

Diamond enhancement Diamond enhancements are specific treatments, performed on natural diamonds (usually those already cut and polished into gems), which are designed to improve the visual gemological characteristics of the diamond in one or more ways. These include ...

Diamond turning Diamond turning is turning using a cutting tool with a diamond tip. It is a process of mechanical machining of precision elements using lathes or derivative machine tools (e.g., turn-mills, rotary transfers) equipped with natural or synthetic d ...

Dichroic filter A dichroic filter, thin-film filter, or interference filter is a color filter used to selectively pass light of a small range of colors while reflecting other colors. By comparison, dichroic mirrors and dichroic reflectors tend to be characteri ...

* Dielectric mirror * Diffractive beam splitter *

Digital holographic microscopy Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is digital holography applied to microscopy. Digital holographic microscopy distinguishes itself from other microscopy methods by not recording the projected image of the object. Instead, the light wave fron ...

Diode-pumped solid-state laser A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a solid-state laser made by pumping a solid gain medium, for example, a ruby or a neodymium-doped YAG crystal, with a laser diode. DPSSLs have advantages in compactness and efficiency over other types ...

* Dipole trap * Direct laser lithography *

Direct metal laser sintering Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technique that uses a laser as the power and heat source to sinter powdered material (typically nylon or polyamide), aiming the laser automatically at points in space defined b ...

Directed-energy weapon A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include w ...

Air University Research Template: "NON-LETHAL WEAPONS: SETTING OUR PHASERS ON STUN? Potential Strategic Blessings and Curses of Non-Lethal Weapons on the Battlefield"; Erik L. Nutley, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF; August 2003; Occasional Paper No. 34; Center for Strategy and Technology; Air War College; Air University; Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; PG1

*

Disk laser A disk laser or active mirror (Fig.1) is a type of diode pumped solid-state laser characterized by a heat sink and laser output that are realized on opposite sides of a thin layer of active gain medium. Despite their name, disk lasers do not ha ...

Dispersive prism In optics, a dispersive prism is an optical prism that is used to disperse light, that is, to separate light into its spectral components (the colors of the rainbow). Different wavelengths (colors) of light will be deflected by the prism at di ...

Distributed Bragg reflector A distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) is a reflector used in waveguides, such as optical fibers. It is a structure formed from multiple layers of alternating materials with varying refractive index, or by periodic variation of some characteristic ...

Distributed acoustic sensing Rayleigh scattering based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems use fiber optic cables to provide distributed strain sensing. In DAS, the optical fiber cable becomes the sensing element and measurements are made, and in part processed, using an ...

* Distributed feedback laser *

Distributed temperature sensing Distributed temperature sensing systems (DTS) are optoelectronic devices which measure temperatures by means of optical fibres functioning as linear sensors. Temperatures are recorded along the optical sensor cable, thus not at points, but as a cont ...

Dopant A dopant, also called a doping agent, is a trace of impurity element that is introduced into a chemical material to alter its original electrical or optical properties. The amount of dopant necessary to cause changes is typically very low. When ...

Doppler cooling limit Doppler cooling is a mechanism that can be used to trap and slow the motion of atoms to cool a substance. The term is sometimes used synonymously with laser cooling, though laser cooling includes other techniques. History Doppler cooling was si ...

Double-clad fiber Double-clad fiber (DCF) is a class of optical fiber with a structure consisting of three layers of optical material instead of the usual two. The inner-most layer is called the ''core''. It is surrounded by the ''inner cladding'', which is surro ...

Double-density compact disc The double-density compact disc (DDCD) is an optical disc technology developed by Sony using the same laser wavelength as a compact disc, namely 780 nm. The format is defined by the ''Purple Book'' standard document. Unlike the compact-disc technolo ...

Double-slit experiment In modern physics, the double-slit experiment is a demonstration that light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles; moreover, it displays the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics ...

* Dual polarization interferometry *

Dumpy level A level is an optical instrument used to establish or verify points in the same horizontal plane in a process known as levelling, and is used in conjunction with a levelling staff to establish the relative height levels of objects or marks. It is ...

Dye laser A dye laser is a laser that uses an organic dye as the lasing medium, usually as a liquid solution. Compared to gases and most solid state lasing media, a dye can usually be used for a much wider range of wavelengths, often spanning 50 to 100 ...

* Dynamic Laser Cruise Control *

Dynamic light scattering Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is a technique in physics that can be used to determine the size distribution profile of small particles in suspension or polymers in solution. In the scope of DLS, temporal fluctuations are usually analyzed using ...

E

Electric spark An electric spark is an abrupt electrical discharge that occurs when a sufficiently high electric field creates an ionized, electrically conductive channel through a normally-insulating medium, often air or other gases or gas mixtures. Michael F ...

Electro-absorption modulator An electro-absorption modulator (EAM) is a semiconductor device which can be used for modulating the intensity of a laser beam via an electric voltage. Its principle of operation is based on the Franz–Keldysh effect, i.e., a change in the absorpti ...

Electro-optic modulator An electro-optic modulator (EOM) is an optical device in which a signal-controlled element exhibiting an electro-optic effect is used to modulate a beam of light. The modulation may be imposed on the phase, frequency, amplitude, or polarization ...

Electrolaser An electrolaser is a type of electroshock weapon that is also a directed-energy weapon. It uses lasers to form an electrically conductive ''laser-induced plasma channel'' (LIPC). A fraction of a second later, a powerful electric current is sent d ...

Electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, inf ...

Electromagnetically induced grating Electromagnetically induced grating (EIG) is an optical Interference (wave propagation), interference phenomenon where an interference pattern is used to build a dynamic spatial diffraction grating in matter. EIGs are dynamically created by light in ...

Electromagnetically induced transparency Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a coherent optical nonlinearity which renders a medium transparent within a narrow spectral range around an absorption line. Extreme dispersion is also created within this transparency "window" ...

* Electronic countermeasure *

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI), also known as TV holography, is a technique that uses laser light, together with video detection, recording and processing, to visualise static and dynamic displacements of components with optic ...

Electrophoretic light scattering Electrophoretic light scattering (also known as laser Doppler electrophoresis and phase analysis light scattering ) is based on dynamic light scattering. The frequency shift or phase (waves), phase shift of an incident laser beam depends on the dis ...

Electrophotography Xerography is a dry photocopying technique. Originally called electrophotography, it was renamed xerography—from the roots el, ξηρός, label=none ''xeros'', meaning "dry" and -γραφία ''-graphia'', meaning "writing"—to emphasize ...

Electrostatic-sensitive device An electrostatic-sensitive device (often abbreviated ESD) is any component (primarily electrical) which can be damaged by common static charges which build up on people, tools, and other non-conductors or semiconductors. ESD commonly also stan ...

Encircled energy The optical, optics term encircled energy refers to a measure of concentration of energy in an optical image, or projected laser beam, laser at a given range. If a single star is brought to its sharpest Focus (optics), focus by a lens (optics), len ...

* Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology *

Endovenous laser treatment Endovenous laser treatment (ELT) is a minimally invasive ultrasound-guided technique used for treating varicose veins using laser energy commonly performed by a phlebologist, interventional radiologist or vascular surgeon. Methods Endovenous laser ...

Energy transfer upconversion Energy Transfer Upconversion or ETU is a physical principle (most commonly encountered in solid-state laser physics) that involves the excitation of a laser-active ion to a level above that which would be achieved by simple absorption of a pump pho ...

Enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...

* European x-ray free electron laser * Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement *

Excimer laser An excimer laser, sometimes more correctly called an exciplex laser, is a form of ultraviolet laser which is commonly used in the production of microelectronic devices, semiconductor based integrated circuits or "chips", eye surgery, and microm ...

Extensometer An extensometer is a device that is used to measure changes in the length of an object. It is useful for stress-strain measurements and tensile tests. Its name comes from "extension-meter". It was invented by Charles Huston who described it ...

Extinction cross {{no footnotes, date=October 2018 The extinction cross is an optical phenomenon that is seen when trying to extinguish a laser beam or non-planar white light using crossed polarizers. Ideally, crossed (90° rotated) polarizers block all light, sin ...

* Extinction ratio *

Extreme Light Infrastructure The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) is an international series of physics laboratories for generating and studying intense laser light. It is part of the European ESFRI Roadmap. ELI hosts the most intense beamline system worldwide, develop new ...

Extreme ultraviolet Extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV or XUV) or high-energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths from 124 nm down to 10 nm, and therefore (by the Planck–E ...

* Extreme ultraviolet lithography * Eye surgery *

Eye testing using speckle Laser speckle also known as eye testing using speckle can be employed as a method for conducting a very sensitive eye test. When a surface is illuminated by a laser beam and is viewed by an observer, a speckle pattern is formed on the retina. If t ...

F

FILAT FILAT (Forward-looking Infrared and Laser Attack Targeting) pod is an airborne targeting pod designed to provide aircraft with all weather / night attack capabilities. It was first revealed to the public at 1998 Zhuhai Air Show, and it is designed ...

, Forward-looking Infrared and Laser Attack Targeting *

FLASH Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...

FROG A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

Fabrication (metal) Metal fabrication is the creation of metal structures by cutting, bending and assembling processes. It is a value-added process involving the creation of machines, parts, and structures from various raw materials. Typically, a fabrication sh ...

Fabry–Pérot interferometer In optics, a Fabry–Pérot interferometer (FPI) or etalon is an optical cavity made from two parallel reflecting surfaces (i.e.: thin mirrors). Optical waves can pass through the optical cavity only when they are in resonance with it. It is ...

Far-infrared laser Far-infrared laser or terahertz laser (FIR laser, THz laser) is a laser with output wavelength in between 30-1000 µm (frequency 0.3-10 THz), in the far infrared or terahertz frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum. FIR lasers have app ...

Fast atom bombardment Fast atom bombardment (FAB) is an ionization technique used in mass spectrometry in which a beam of high energy atoms strikes a surface to create ions. It was developed by Michael Barber at the University of Manchester in 1980. When a beam of hig ...

* Femtolab * Femtosecond Lenticule EXtraction * Femtosecond laser intrastromal vision correction *

Femtosecond pulse shaping In optics, femtosecond pulse shaping refers to manipulations with temporal profile of an ultrashort laser pulse. Pulse shaping can be used to shorten/elongate the duration of optical pulse, or to generate complex pulses. Introduction Generation ...

Fiber Bragg grating A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of distributed Bragg reflector constructed in a short segment of optical fiber that reflects particular wavelengths of light and transmits all others. This is achieved by creating a periodic variation in th ...

* Fiber disk laser * Fiber laser *

Fibre optic gyroscope A fibre-optic gyroscope (FOG) senses changes in orientation using the Sagnac effect, thus performing the function of a mechanical gyroscope. However its principle of operation is instead based on the interference of light which has passed throu ...

Field-Map Field-Map is a proprietary integrated tool designed for programmatic field data collection from IFER – Monitoring and Mapping Solutions, Ltd. It is mainly used for the allocation of forest ecosystems and data collection during field analysis. ...

* Figure-8 laser *

Filament propagation In nonlinear optics, filament propagation is propagation of a beam of light through a medium without diffraction. This is possible because the Kerr effect causes an index of refraction change in the medium, resulting in self-focusing of the beam. F ...

Fire-and-forget Fire-and-forget is a type of missile guidance which does not require further external intervention after launch such as illumination of the target or wire guidance, and can hit its target without the launcher being in line-of-sight of the targe ...

* Firearm microstamping * Fixed-point laser sensors *

Flash photolysis Flash photolysis is a pump-probe laboratory technique, in which a sample is first excited by a strong pulse of light from a pulsed laser of nanosecond, picosecond, or femtosecond pulse width or by another short-pulse light source such as a fla ...

Flashtube A flashtube (flashlamp) is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for a very short time. A flashtube is a glass tube with an electrode at each end and is filled with a gas that, when tr ...

Flow cytometry Flow cytometry (FC) is a technique used to detect and measure physical and chemical characteristics of a population of cells or particles. In this process, a sample containing cells or particles is suspended in a fluid and injected into the flo ...

Fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy Fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy (FCCS) is a Spectroscopy, spectroscopic technique that examines the interactions of fluorescent particles of different colours as they randomly diffuse through a microscopic detection volume over time, und ...

Fluorescence spectroscopy Fluorescence spectroscopy (also known as fluorimetry or spectrofluorometry) is a type of electromagnetic spectroscopy that analyzes fluorescence from a sample. It involves using a beam of light, usually ultraviolet light, that excites the electron ...

* Forced Rayleigh scattering * Fourier domain mode locking * 4Pi microscope, a laser scanning fluorescence microscope *

Frame-dragging Frame-dragging is an effect on spacetime, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, that is due to non-static stationary distributions of mass–energy. A stationary field is one that is in a steady state, but the masses ca ...

Fraunhofer diffraction In optics, the Fraunhofer diffraction equation is used to model the diffraction of waves when plane waves are incident on a diffracting object, and the diffraction pattern is viewed at a sufficiently long distance (a distance satisfying Fraunhofer ...

Free-electron laser A free-electron laser (FEL) is a (fourth generation) light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions and behaves in many ways like a laser, but instead of using stimulated emission from atomic or molecula ...

Free-space optical communication Free-space optical communication (FSO) is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to wirelessly transmit data for telecommunications or computer networking. "Free space" means air, outer space, vacuum, or ...

* Frequency Addition Source of Optical Radiation *

Frequency agility Frequency agility is the ability of a radar system to quickly shift its operating frequency to account for atmospheric effects, jamming, mutual interference with friendly sources, or to make it more difficult to locate the radar broadcaster through ...

Frequency comb In optics, a frequency comb is a laser source whose spectrum consists of a series of discrete, equally spaced frequency lines. Frequency combs can be generated by a number of mechanisms, including periodic modulation (in amplitude and/or phase) of a ...

Frequency-resolved optical gating Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) is a general method for measuring the spectral phase of ultrashort laser pulses, which range from subfemtosecond to about a nanosecond in length. Invented in 1991 by Rick Trebino and Daniel J. Kane, FROG was ...

* Fuser *

Fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion, nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, whi ...

Fusion splicing Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole. Fusion may also refer to: Science and technology Physics *Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nuc ...

G

GBU-44/B Viper Strike The GBU-44/B Viper Strike glide bomb was a GPS-aided laser-guided variant of the Northrop Grumman Brilliant Anti-Tank (BAT) munition which originally had a combination acoustic and infrared homing seeker. The system was initially intended for use ...

GEKKO XII The is a high-power, 12-beam, neodymium-doped glass laser at the Osaka University's Institute for Laser Engineering (大阪大学レーザーエネルギー学研究センター) completed in 1983, which is used for high energy density physics a ...

* GRENOUILLE * Gain-switching *

Gain (lasers) In laser physics, gain or amplification is a process where the medium transfers part of its energy to the emitted electromagnetic radiation, resulting in an increase in optical power. This is the basic principle of all lasers. Quantitatively, ''gain ...

Galvanometer A galvanometer is an electromechanical measuring instrument for electric current. Early galvanometers were uncalibrated, but improved versions, called ammeters, were calibrated and could measure the flow of current more precisely. A galvanom ...

* Gamma ray laser *

Gamut In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circ ...

Gas centrifuge A gas centrifuge is a device that performs isotope separation of gases. A centrifuge relies on the principles of centrifugal force accelerating molecules so that particles of different masses are physically separated in a gradient along the radiu ...

Gas dynamic laser A gas dynamic laser (GDL) is a laser based on differences in relaxation velocities of molecular vibrational states. The lasing medium gas has such properties that an energetically lower vibrational state relaxes faster than a higher vibrational st ...

Gas laser A gas laser is a laser in which an electric current is discharged through a gas to produce coherent light. The gas laser was the first continuous-light laser and the first laser to operate on the principle of converting electrical energy to a lase ...

* Gaser, Gamma Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation *

Gaussian beam In optics, a Gaussian beam is a beam of electromagnetic radiation with high monochromaticity whose amplitude envelope in the transverse plane is given by a Gaussian function; this also implies a Gaussian intensity (irradiance) profile. Thi ...

* Geoscience Laser Altimeter System * Glan–laser prism * Goniometer *

Grating-eliminated no-nonsense observation of ultrafast incident laser light e-fields Grating-eliminated no-nonsense observation of ultrafast incident laser light e-fields (GRENOUILLE) is an ultrashort pulse measurement technique based on frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG). The acronym was chosen because of the technique's re ...

, GRENOUILLE * Grating light valve *

Gravitational wave Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...

Gravitational wave detector A gravitational-wave detector (used in a gravitational-wave observatory) is any device designed to measure tiny distortions of spacetime called gravitational waves. Since the 1960s, various kinds of gravitational-wave detectors have been built ...

* Gravity laser * Guidance system *

Guided Advanced Tactical Rocket – Laser The Guided Advanced Tactical Rocket (GATR) is a weapons system under development by Orbital ATK and Elbit Systems. It is intended to provide a low-cost guided missile compatible with existing unguided 70mm rocket launch platforms such as the Hy ...

H

* HDSS *

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to th ...

* HELRAM *

HP LaserJet LaserJet as a brand name identifies the line of laser printers marketed by the American computer company Hewlett-Packard (HP). The HP LaserJet was the first popular desktop laser printer. Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP ...

Handheld projector A handheld projector (also known as a pocket projector, mobile projector, pico projector or mini beamer) is an image projector in a handheld device. It was developed as a computer display device for compact portable devices such as mobile ph ...

* Hateruma class patrol vessel *

Heat-affected zone In fusion welding, the heat-affected zone (HAZ) is the area of base material, either a metal or a thermoplastic, which is not melted but has had its microstructure and properties altered by welding or heat intensive cutting operations. The heat ...

Heat treating Heat treating (or heat treatment) is a group of industrial, thermal and metalworking processes used to alter the physical, and sometimes chemical, properties of a material. The most common application is metallurgical. Heat treatments are also ...

Helium–neon laser A helium–neon laser or He-Ne laser, is a type of gas laser whose high energetic medium gain medium consists of a mixture of 10:1 ratio of helium and neon at a total pressure of about 1 torr inside of a small electrical discharge. The bes ...

Heterodyne A heterodyne is a signal frequency that is created by combining or mixing two other frequencies using a signal processing technique called ''heterodyning'', which was invented by Canadian inventor-engineer Reginald Fessenden. Heterodyning is u ...

Heterojunction A heterojunction is an interface between two layers or regions of dissimilar semiconductors. These semiconducting materials have unequal band gaps as opposed to a homojunction. It is often advantageous to engineer the electronic energy bands in many ...

HiPER The High Power laser Energy Research facility (HiPER), is a proposed experimental laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) device undergoing preliminary design for possible construction in the European Union. , the effort appears to be i ...

* High-altitude wind power * High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System * High Harmonic Generation *

Holographic Versatile Disc The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology that was expected to store up to several terabytes of data on an optical disc 10 cm or 12 cm in diameter. Its development commenced in April 2004, but it never arrived ...

* Holographic drive *

Holographic grating A holographic grating is a type of diffraction grating In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a periodic structure that diffracts light into several beams travelling in different directions (i.e., different diffraction ...

* Holographic weapon sight *

Holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...

Holometer The Fermilab Holometer in Illinois is intended to be the world's most sensitive laser interferometer, surpassing the sensitivity of the GEO600 and LIGO systems, and theoretically able to detect holographic fluctuations in spacetime. According t ...

Homodyne detection In electrical engineering, homodyne detection is a method of extracting information encoded as modulation of the phase and/or frequency of an oscillating signal, by comparing that signal with a standard oscillation that would be identical to the s ...

Homogeneous broadening Homogeneous broadening is a type of emission spectrum broadening in which all atoms radiating from a specific level under consideration radiate with equal opportunity. If an optical emitter (e.g. an atom) shows homogeneous broadening, its spectra ...

Horizon Laser Vision Center Classic The Horizon Laser Vision Center Curling Classic was an annual bonspiel, or curling tournament, that took place at the Tartan Curling Club in Regina, Saskatchewan. The tournament, started in 2009, and was held in a round-robin format with twenty-fo ...

Hybrid silicon laser A hybrid silicon laser is a semiconductor laser fabricated from both silicon and group III-V semiconductor materials. The hybrid silicon laser was developed to address the lack of a silicon laser to enable fabrication of low-cost, mass-producible s ...

Hydrodynamic focusing Hydrodynamic focusing is a technique used to provide more accurate results when using flow cytometers or Coulter counters for determining the size of bacteria or cells. Technique Measuring particles Cells are counted as they are forced to pas ...

Hydrogen fluoride laser The hydrogen fluoride laser is an infrared chemical laser. It is capable of delivering continuous output power in the megawatt range. Hydrogen fluoride lasers operate at the wavelength of 2.7-2.9 µm. This wavelength is absorbed by the atmos ...

Hydroxyl tagging velocimetry Hydroxyl tagging velocimetry (HTV) is a velocimetry method used in humid air flows. The method is often used in high-speed combusting flows because the high velocity and temperature accentuate its advantages over similar methods. HTV uses a laser ...

I

Ion laser An ion laser is a gas laser that uses an ionized gas as its lasing medium. Like other gas lasers, ion lasers feature a sealed cavity containing the laser medium and mirrors forming a Fabry–Pérot resonator. Unlike helium–neon lasers, the ...

J

Janus laser The Janus laser was a (then considered high power) two beam infrared neodymium doped silica glass laser built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1974 for the study of inertial confinement fusion. Janus was built using about 100 pounds o ...

K

* KALI (laser) *

Kerr-lens modelocking Kerr-lens mode-locking (KLM) is a method of mode-locking lasers via the nonlinear optical Kerr effect. This method allows the generation of pulses of light with a duration as short as a few femtoseconds. The optical Kerr effect is a process whi ...

* Kerr effect *

Keyence is a direct sales organization that develops and manufactures automation sensors, vision systems, barcode readers, laser markers, measuring instruments, and digital microscopes. Keyence is fablessalthough it is a manufacturer; it specializes ...

Krasnopol (Weapon) The 2K25 ''Krasnopol''Krasnopol-M2
Retrieved 4 July 2018. is a Soviet 152/

Krypton fluoride laser A krypton fluoride laser (KrF laser) is a particular type of excimer laser, which is sometimes (more correctly) called an exciplex laser. With its 248 nanometer wavelength, it is a deep ultraviolet laser which is commonly used in the production of ...

L

* LAM, Laser Assisted Myringotomy *

LANTIRN LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) is a combined navigation and targeting pod system for use on the United States Air Force fighter aircraft—the F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon (Block 40/42 C & D mo ...

Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) is a combined navigation and targeting pod system for use on the United States Air Force fighter aircraft—the F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon (Block 40/42 C & D m ...

LARES (satellite) LARES (Laser Relativity Satellite) is a passive satellite system of the Italian Space Agency. Mission Launch LARES was launched into orbit on 13 February 2012 at 10:00:00 UTC. It was launched on the first Vega rocket from the ESA Centre S ...

* LCA-Vision * LCGT *

LED printer An LED printer is a type of computer printer similar to a laser printer. Such a printer uses a light-emitting diode (LED) array as a light source in the printhead instead of the laser used in laser printers and, more generally, in the xerography ...

* LFA, Laser flash analysis *

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

, Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) *

LIDAR speed gun Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

LISA Pathfinder LISA Pathfinder, formerly Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology-2 (SMART-2), was an ESA spacecraft that was launched on 3 December 2015 on board Vega flight VV06. The mission tested technologies needed for the Laser Interferometer S ...

LITENING targeting pod The AN/AAQ-28(V) Litening targeting pod is an advanced precision targeting pod system currently operational with a wide variety of aircraft worldwide. The research and development of the ''Litening'' was first undertaken by Rafael Advanced Defens ...

LLM01 The LLM01 (Laser Light Module 01) is an adaptive target acquisition module made by Rheinmetall Soldier Electronics GmbH in Stockach, Germany. It is designed to be mounted with a metal integral quick release clamping adapter on the left side of ...

LOMAK LOMAK is an acronym for Light Operated Mouse And Keyboard. It is an assistive technology device designed for use by people who cannot use a standard computer keyboard and mouse. The Lomak is clipped to an adjustable stand placed vertically underne ...

, Light Operated Mouse And Keyboard * LPKF Laser & Electronics *

LT PGB LT PGB is an abbreviation for a family of Chinese built precision guided munitions named Fury Precision-guided munition (Lei-Ting Jing-Que Zhi-Dao Zha-Dan, 雷霆精确制导炸弹) developed bLuoyang Electro-Optics Technology Development Centre ( ...

LULI {{About, , the Central Asian ethnic group, Lyuli, the Chilean model, Nicole Moreno Luli or Elulaios was king of the Phoenician city of Tyre (729–694 BC). During his reign, Tyre lost what remained of its power to Assyria. The reign of Luli is cha ...

* LULI2000 * LaSer UK *

Laboratory for Laser Energetics The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is a scientific research facility which is part of the University of Rochester's south campus, located in Brighton, New York. The lab was established in 1970 and its operations since then have been fund ...

Laminated object manufacturing Laminated object manufacturing (LOM) is a rapid prototyping system developed by Helisys Inc. (Cubic Technologies is now the successor organization of Helisys) In it, layers of adhesive-coated paper, plastic, or metal laminates are successively ...

Laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

Laser-assisted new attachment procedure Laser-assisted new attachment procedure (LANAP) is a surgical therapy for the treatment of periodontitis, intended to work through regeneration rather than resection. This therapy and the laser used to perform it have been in use since 1994. It was ...

Laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy Laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is a form of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy that uses a laser as the light source. Photoemission spectroscopy is a powerful and sensitive experimental technique to study surface physi ...

* Laser-doppler flowmetry *

Laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly p ...

Laser-heated pedestal growth Laser-heated pedestal growth (LHPG) or laser floating zone (LFZ) is a crystal growth technique. A narrow region of a crystal is melted with a powerful CO2 or YAG laser. The laser and hence the floating zone, is moved along the crystal. The molte ...

* Laser-hybrid welding *

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a type of atomic emission spectroscopy which uses a highly energetic laser pulse as the excitation source. The laser is focused to form a plasma, which atomizes and excites samples. The formation of ...

Laser-induced fluorescence Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) or laser-stimulated fluorescence (LSF) is a spectroscopic method in which an atom or molecule is excited to a higher energy level by the absorption of laser light followed by spontaneous emission of light. It was f ...

Laser ablation Laser ablation or photoablation (also called laser blasting) is the process of removing material from a solid (or occasionally liquid) surface by irradiating it with a laser beam. At low laser flux, the material is heated by the absorbed laser ...

* Laser ablation electrospray ionization *

Laser ablation synthesis in solution Laser ablation synthesis in solution (LASiS) is a commonly used method for obtaining Colloid, colloidal solution of Nanoparticle, nanoparticles in a variety of Solvent, solvents. Nanoparticles (NPs,), are useful in chemistry, engineering and bioche ...

Laser absorption spectrometry Laser absorption spectrometry (LAS) refers to techniques that use lasers to assess the concentration or amount of a species in gas phase by absorption spectrometry (AS). Optical spectroscopic techniques in general, and laser-based techniques in ...

* Laser accelerometer *

Laser acronyms This is a list of acronyms and other initialisms used in laser physics and laser applications. A *AOM – acousto-optic modulator *AOPDF – acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter *APD – avalanche photodiode *APM – additive-pulse m ...

Laser aiming module A laser sight is a device attached or integral to a firearm to aid target acquisition. Unlike optical and iron sights where the user looks through the device to aim at the target, laser sights project a beam onto the target, providing a visual r ...

Laser airborne depth sounder The Laser Airborne Depth Sounder (LADS) Flight was a unit of the Royal Australian Navy. Unlike the rest of the flying units of the RAN, it was not controlled by the Fleet Air Arm from , but instead fell under the operational control of the Austral ...

* Laser Arena * Laser assisted parking * Laser beam divergence * Laser beam machining *

Laser beam profiler A laser beam profiler captures, displays, and records the spatial intensity profile of a laser beam at a particular plane transverse to the beam propagation path. Since there are many types of lasers — ultraviolet, visible, infrared, contin ...

* Laser beam quality * Laser beam riding * Laser blended vision * Laser bridge *

Laser broom A laser broom is a proposed ground-based laser beam-powered propulsion system whose purpose is to sweep space debris out of the path of other artificial satellites such as the International Space Station. It would heat one side of an object ...

Laser camera system Neptec Design Group is an Ottawa-based Canadian vision systems company that provides machine vision solutions for space, industrial, and military applications. Privately owned and founded in 1990, Neptec supplies operational systems to NASA's ...

Laser cannon A laser weapon is a directed-energy weapon based on lasers. After decades of R&D, directed-energy weapons including lasers are still at the experimental stage and it remains to be seen if or when they will be deployed as practical, high-perfo ...

* Laser cautery *

Laser coagulation Laser coagulation or laser photocoagulation surgery is used to treat a number of eye diseases and has become widely used in recent decades. During the procedure, a laser is used to finely cauterize ocular blood vessels to attempt to bring about var ...

Laser communication Free-space optical communication (FSO) is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to wirelessly transmit data for telecommunications or computer networking. "Free space" means air, outer space, vacuum, or ...

Laser construction A laser is constructed from three principal parts: *An energy source (usually referred to as the '' pump'' or ''pump source''), *A ''gain medium'' or ''laser medium'', and *Two or more mirrors that form an ''optical resonator''. Pump source The ...

Laser converting For industrial processes, Laser converting or laser digital converting is a Manufacturing, production technology that enables device manufacturers to produce features that otherwise would be problematic or even impossible to Die preparation, die-cu ...

Laser cooling Laser cooling includes a number of techniques in which atoms, molecules, and small mechanical systems are cooled, often approaching temperatures near absolute zero. Laser cooling techniques rely on the fact that when an object (usually an atom) ...

* Laser crystal *

Laser cutting Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to vaporize materials, resulting in a cut edge. While typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, it is now used by schools, small businesses, architecture, and hobbyists. Laser cutt ...

Laser dazzler A dazzler is a non-lethal weapon which uses intense directed radiation to temporarily disorient its target with flash blindness. They can effectively deter further advances, regardless of language or cultural barriers, but can also be used for h ...

Laser designator A laser designator is a laser light source which is used to designate a target. Laser designators provide targeting for laser-guided bombs, missiles, or precision artillery munitions, such as the Paveway series of bombs, AGM-114 Hellfire, o ...

* Laser Design, Inc. * Laser detector *

Laser detuning In optical physics, laser detuning is the tuning of a laser to a frequency that is slightly off from a quantum system's resonant frequency. When used as a noun, the laser detuning is the difference between the resonance frequency of the system and ...

Laser diffraction analysis Laser diffraction analysis, also known as laser diffraction spectroscopy, is a technology that utilizes diffraction patterns of a laser beam passed through any object ranging from nanometers to millimeters in size to quickly measure geometrical dim ...

Laser diode file:Laser diode chip.jpg, The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD, or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a di ...

* Laser diode rate equations *

Laser Doppler velocimetry Laser Doppler velocimetry, also known as laser Doppler anemometry, is the technique of using the Doppler shift in a laser beam to measure the velocity in transparent or semi-transparent fluid flows or the linear or vibratory motion of opaque, refle ...

Laser Doppler vibrometer A laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) is a scientific instrument that is used to make non-contact vibration measurements of a surface. The laser beam from the LDV is directed at the surface of interest, and the vibration amplitude and frequency are extr ...

Laser drilling Laser drilling is the process of creating thru-holes, referred to as “popped” holes or “percussion drilled” holes, by repeatedly pulsing focused laser energy on a material. The diameter of these holes can be as small as 0.002” (~50 μm). ...

Laser dynamic range imager The Laser Dynamic Range Imager (LDRI) is a LIDAR range imaging device developed by Sandia National Laboratories for the US Space Shuttle program. The sensor was developed as part of NASA's "Return to Flight" effort following the Space Shuttle Colu ...

* Laser Electrical *

Laser engraving Laser engraving is the practice of using lasers to engrave an object. Laser marking, on the other hand, is a broader category of methods to leave marks on an object, which in some cases, also includes color change due to chemical/molecular alte ...

* Laser extensometer *

Laser eye surgery Eye surgery, also known as ophthalmic or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, by an ophthalmologist or sometimes, an optometrist. Eye surgery is synonymous with ophthalmology. The eye is a very fragile organ, and requ ...

* Laser fence *

Laser flash analysis The laser flash analysis or laser flash method is used to measure thermal diffusivity of a variety of different materials. An energy pulse heats one side of a plane-parallel sample and the resulting time dependent temperature rise on the backsid ...

Laser Focus World ''Laser Focus World'' is a monthly magazine published by Endeavor Business Media covering laser, photonics and optoelectronics technologies, applications, and markets. Many qualified professionals in those fields receive it free of charge; it is a ...

Laser fusion Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with thermonuclear fuel. In modern machines, the targets are small spherical pellets about the size of ...

* Laser Geodynamics Satellites,

LAGEOS LAGEOS, Laser Geodynamics Satellite or Laser Geometric Environmental Observation Survey, are a series of two scientific research satellites designed to provide an orbiting laser ranging benchmark for geodynamical studies of the Earth. Each satel ...

* Laser Ghost * Laser glass sculpture * Laser guidance *

Laser guide star A laser guide star is an artificial star image created for use in astronomical adaptive optics systems, which are employed in large telescopes in order to correct atmospheric distortion of light (called '' astronomical seeing''). Adaptive op ...

Laser guns A laser weapon is a directed-energy weapon based on lasers. After decades of R&D, directed-energy weapons including lasers are still at the experimental stage and it remains to be seen if or when they will be deployed as practical, high-perfo ...

* Laser hair removal *

Laser harp A laser harp is an electronic musical user interface and laser lighting display. It projects several laser beams played by the musician by blocking them to produce sounds, visually reminiscent of a harp. It was popularised by Jean-Michel Jarre, ...

* Laser heater * Laser imaging * Laser inertial fusion energy *

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...

* Laser injection * Laser integration line * Laser keyboard *

Laser level In surveying and construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0 ...

* Laser levitation * Laser light show (Grand Coulee Dam) *

Laser light shows A laser lighting display or laser light show involves the use of laser light to entertain an audience. A laser light show may consist only of projected laser light beam, beams set to music, or may accompany another form of entertainment, ty ...

Laser line level A laser line level is a tool combining a spirit level and/or plumb bob with a laser to display an accurately horizontal or vertical illuminated line on a surface the laser line level is laid against. Laser line levels are used wherever accurate v ...

* Laser linewidth *

Laser lithotripsy Laser lithotripsy is a surgical procedure to remove stones from urinary tract, i.e., kidney, ureter, bladder, or urethra. History Laser lithotripsy was invented at the Wellman Center for Photo medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 198 ...

* Laser machine control *

Laser medicine Laser medicine consists in the use of lasers in medical diagnosis, treatments, or therapies, such as laser photodynamic therapy, photorejuvenation, and laser surgery. Lasers Lasers used in medicine include in principle any type of laser, bu ...

Laser Mégajoule Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device near Bordeaux, France, built by the French nuclear science directorate, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA). Laser Mégajoule plans to deliver ...

Laser melting Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of many proprietary names for a metal additive manufacturing (AM) technology that uses a bed of powder with a source of heat to create metal parts. Also known as direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), the ASTM ...

Laser mouse An optical mouse is a computer mouse which uses a light source, typically a light-emitting diode (LED), and a light detector, such as an array of photodiodes, to detect movement relative to a surface. Variations of the optical mouse have largely r ...

* Laser microjet *

Laser microphone A laser microphone is a surveillance device that uses a laser beam to detect sound vibrations in a distant object. It can be used to eavesdrop with minimal chance of exposure. The object is typically inside a room where a conversation is taking p ...

* Laser microprobe mass spectrometry * Laser microscopy * Laser mode * Laser oscillation * Laser photoplotter *

Laser pistol A raygun is a science-fiction directed-energy weapon that releases energy, usually with destructive effect.Jeff Prucher, '' Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction,'' Oxford University Press, 2007, page 162 They have variou ...

* Laser plasma acceleration *

Laser pointer A laser pointer or laser pen is a small handheld device with a power source (usually a battery) and a laser diode emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered laser beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by ...

* Laser power beaming *

Laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...

Laser propulsion Laser propulsion is a form of beam-powered propulsion where the energy source is a remote (usually ground-based) laser system and separate from the reaction mass. This form of propulsion differs from a conventional chemical rocket where both energy ...

* Laser protection eyewear *

Laser Radial The Laser Radial or ILCA 6 is a popular one-design class of small sailing dinghy, originally built by Laser Performance. It is a singlehanded boat, meaning that it is sailed by one person. The Laser Radial is a variant of the Laser standard, ...

* Laser radial keratotomy *

Laser rangefinder A laser rangefinder, also known as a laser telemeter, is a rangefinder that uses a laser beam to determine the distance to an object. The most common form of laser rangefinder operates on the time of flight principle by sending a laser pulse in ...

* Laser rapid manufacturing * Laser reflecting goniometer *

Laser resurfacing Photorejuvenation is a skin treatment that uses lasers, intense pulsed light, or photodynamic therapy to treat skin conditions and remove effects of photoaging such as wrinkles, spots, and textures. The process induces controlled wounds to the sk ...

Laser rot A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

* Laser safety *

Laser scalpel A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

Laser scanner Laser scanning is the controlled Deflection (physics), deflection of laser beams, visible or invisible. Scanned laser beams are used in some 3-D printers, in rapid prototyping, in machines for material processing, in laser engraving machines, i ...

* Laser scanning * Laser science *

Laser Science and Technology Centre Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC) is a laboratory of the Defence Research & Development Organization ( DRDO). Located in Delhi, it is the main DRDO lab involved in the development of lasers and related technologies. LASTEC functions un ...

* Laser shaft alignment * Laser shock *

Laser sight A laser sight is a device attached or integral to a firearm to aid target acquisition. Unlike optical and iron sights where the user looks through the device to aim at the target, laser sights project a beam onto the target, providing a visual ...

* Laser snow * Laser soldering *

Laser speckle Speckle, speckle pattern, or speckle noise is a granular noise texture degrading the quality as a consequence of interference among wavefronts in coherent imaging Imaging is the representation or reproduction of an object's form; especially ...

Laser spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

* Laser spray ionization *

Laser Stratos The Laser Stratos is an all-round cruising and racing boat designed by Phil Morrison and built by LaserPerformance, the same company as the famous Laser Standard dinghy. It is built from fibre-glass and foam sandwich. The Laser Stratos comes ...

Laser surface velocimeter A laser surface velocimeter (LSV) is a non-contact optical speed sensor measuring velocity and length on moving surfaces. Laser surface velocimeters use the laser Doppler principle to evaluate the laser light scattered back from a moving object. T ...

* Laser survey * Laser sword * Laser table *

Laser tag Laser tag is a recreational shooting sport where participants use infrared-emitting light guns to tag designated targets. Infrared-sensitive signaling devices are commonly worn by each player to register hits and are sometimes integrated w ...

Laser thermal keratoplasty Laser thermal keratoplasty is a non-contact laser refractive surgery. __TOC__ Procedure The procedure employs a holmium laser to place a ring of concentric laser burns on the cornea between 6 mm and 7 mm in diameter. These burns cause a ...

Laser thermometer An infrared thermometer is a thermometer which infers temperature from a portion of the thermal radiation sometimes called black-body radiation emitted by the object being measured. They are sometimes called laser thermometers as a laser is us ...

* Laser trackers *

Laser trimming {{Unreferenced, date=June 2015 Laser trimming is the manufacturing process of using a laser to adjust the operating parameters of an electronic circuit. One of the most common applications uses a laser to burn away small portions of resistors, ...

Laser turntable A laser turntable (or optical turntable) is a phonograph that plays standard LP records (and other gramophone records) using laser beams as the pickup instead of using a stylus as in conventional turntables. Although these turntables use la ...

* Laser tweezer * Laser vaginal rejuvenation * Laser video display *

Laser video projector Laser color television (laser TV), or laser color video display, is a type of television that utilizes two or more individually modulated optical (laser) rays of different colors to produce a combined spot that is scanned and projected across the ...

* Laser voltage prober *

Laserblast ''Laserblast'' is a 1978 American science fiction film about an unhappy teenage loner who discovers an alien laser cannon and goes on a murderous rampage, seeking revenge against those who he feels have wronged him. The extremely low-budget film ...

Laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

* Laserfection * Laserfilm *

LaserLock LaserLock is a copy restriction system for CD-ROMs with 32-bit Windows applications introduced by MLS LaserLock International Inc. in 1995. LaserLock is supposed to check whether the original storage medium of a program is inserted. This check can b ...

LaserMotive PowerLight Technologies is an American engineering firm providing power transmission via lasers. Its primary products are power-over-fiber which transmits energy in the form of laser light through an optic fiber, and "laser power beaming" in whi ...

LaserScope The Konami LaserScope is a head-mounted light gun used with and licensed for the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. It was originally released in 1991 in Japan for the Famicom under the name Gun Sight. It was designed for the gam ...

Lasgun Technology is a key aspect of the fictional setting of the ''Dune (franchise), Dune series'' of science fiction novels written by Frank Herbert, and derivative works. Herbert's concepts and inventions have been analyzed and deconstructed in at lea ...

LASIK LASIK or Lasik (''laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis''), commonly referred to as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction, is a type of refractive surgery for the correction of myopia, hyperopia, and an actual cure for astigmatism, sinc ...

(laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) *

Lasing threshold The lasing threshold is the lowest excitation level at which a laser's output is dominated by stimulated emission rather than by spontaneous emission. Below the threshold, the laser's output power rises slowly with increasing excitation. Above t ...

* Laspistol *

Light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...

Light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

LightScribe LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that was created by the Hewlett-Packard Company. It uses specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and print ...

Light beam A light beam or beam of light is a directional projection of light energy radiating from a light source. Sunlight forms a light beam (a sunbeam) when filtered through media such as clouds, foliage, or windows. To artificially produce a light ...

Light dressed state In the fields of atomic, molecular, and optical science, the term light dressed state refers to a quantum state of an atomic or molecular system interacting with a laser light in terms of the Floquet picture, i.e. roughly like an atom or a mole ...

Light gun A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games, typically shaped to resemble a pistol. Early history The first light guns were produced in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensing ...

* Light induced voltage alteration * Light pulse generator *

Light therapy Light therapy, also called phototherapy or bright light therapy is intentional daily exposure to direct sunlight or similar-intensity artificial light in order to treat medical disorders, especially seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and circad ...

Lightcraft The Lightcraft is a space- or air-vehicle driven by beam-powered propulsion, the energy source powering the craft being external. It was conceptualized by aerospace engineering professor Leik Myrabo at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, ...

Lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

Line laser A line laser is a device that employs a laser and an optical lens to project the laser beam as a line rather than a point (e.g. laser pointer). This may be achieved by passing the beam through a cylindrical lens or a Powell lens. Depending on the ...

* Liposuction * Liquid Sky (effect) *

Liquid crystal Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal may flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a crystal-like way. T ...

* Liquid crystal laser *

List of laser applications Many scientific, military, medical and commercial laser applications have been developed since the invention of the laser in 1958. The coherency, high monochromaticity, and ability to reach extremely high powers are all properties which allow f ...

List of laser types This is a list of laser types, their operational wavelengths, and their applications. Thousands of kinds of laser are known, but most of them are used only for specialized research. Overview Gas lasers Chemical lasers Used as directed-ener ...

Lloyd's mirror Lloyd's mirror is an optics experiment that was first described in 1834 by Humphrey Lloyd in the ''Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy''. Its original goal was to provide further evidence for the wave nature of light, beyond those provided by ...

Lockheed Martin Sniper XR The Lockheed Martin Sniper is a targeting pod for military aircraft that provides positive target identification, autonomous tracking, GPS coordinate generation, and precise weapons guidance from extended standoff ranges. The system has been de ...

* Logitech VX Revolution *

Long path laser The Long Path laser was an early high energy infrared laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used to study inertial confinement fusion. Long path was completed in 1972 and was the first ICF laser ever to use neodymium doped glass as t ...

Longitudinal mode A longitudinal mode of a resonant cavity is a particular standing wave pattern formed by waves confined in the cavity. The longitudinal modes correspond to the wavelengths of the wave which are reinforced by constructive interference after man ...

Low-angle laser light scattering Low-angle laser light scattering or LALLS is an application of light scattering that is particularly useful in conjunction with the technique of Size exclusion chromatography, one of the most powerful and widely used techniques to study the molecul ...

Low level laser therapy Low-level laser therapy (LLLT), cold laser therapy, or photobiomodulation (PBM) is a form of medicine that applies low-level (low-power) lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to the surface of the body. Whereas high-power lasers are used in la ...

* Lunar Laser Ranging experiment *

Lyot filter A Lyot filter, named for its inventor Bernard Lyot, is a type of optical filter that uses birefringence to produce a narrow passband of transmitted wavelengths. Lyot filters are often used in astronomy, particularly for solar astronomy. A Lyot ...

M

MALDI imaging MALDI mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) is the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization as a mass spectrometry imaging technique in which the sample, often a thin tissue section, is moved in two dimensions while the mass spectrum is ...

MEMS magnetic field sensor A MEMS magnetic field sensor is a small-scale microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device for detecting and measuring magnetic fields (Magnetometer). Many of these operate by detecting effects of the Lorentz force: a change in voltage or reson ...

MESSENGER ''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...

MIRACL MIRACL, or Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, is a directed energy weapon developed by the US Navy. It is a hydrogen fluoride laser, deuterium fluoride laser, a type of chemical laser. The MIRACL laser first became operational in 1980. It can ...

M squared In laser science, the parameter M2, also known as the beam propagation ratio or beam quality factor is a measure of laser beam quality. It represents the degree of variation of a beam from an ideal Gaussian beam. It is calculated from the ratio of t ...

Madison Symmetric Torus The Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) is a reversed field pinch (RFP) physics experiment with applications to both fusion energy research and astrophysical plasmas. MST is located at the Center for Magnetic Self Organization (CMSO) at the Universit ...

Magnetized target fusion Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is a fusion power concept that combines features of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Like the magnetic approach, the fusion fuel is confined at lower density by magnetic fields ...

Magneto-optic Kerr effect In physics the magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) or the surface magneto-optic Kerr effect (SMOKE) is one of the magneto-optic effects. It describes the changes to light reflected from a magnetized surface. It is used in materials science research ...

Magneto-optical drive A magneto-optical drive is a kind of optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Both 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) form factors exist. In 1983, just a year after the introduc ...

Magneto-optical trap A magneto-optical trap (MOT) is an apparatus which uses laser cooling and a spatially-varying magnetic field to create a trap which can produce samples of cold, trapped, neutral atoms. Temperatures achieved in a MOT can be as low as several micro ...

Manipulation of atoms by optical field When a group of atoms is super-cooled to temperatures near absolute zero, they form a Bose–Einstein condensate, a state of matter where quantum effects can be observed in the macroscopic system. In this state, the trajectories of the atoms ca ...

Mars Global Surveyor ''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the a ...

* Mars Laser Communication Demonstration *

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter 260px, MOLA topographic images of the two hemispheres of Mars. This image appeared on the cover of ''Science'' magazine in May 1999. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) was one of five instruments on the ''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) spacecraf ...

* Marvin (robot) *

Maser A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, Ja ...

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

* McCumber relation *

Megamaser A megamaser is a type of astrophysical maser, which is a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission. Megamasers are distinguished from other astrophysical masers by their large isotropic luminosity. Megamasers have typical ...

* Mercury laser * Metal aromaticity *

Michelson interferometer The Michelson interferometer is a common configuration for optical interferometry and was invented by the 19/20th-century American physicist Albert Abraham Michelson. Using a beam splitter, a light source is split into two arms. Each of those ...

Microplasma A microplasma is a plasma of small dimensions, ranging from tens to thousands of micrometers. Microplasmas can be generated at a variety of temperatures and pressures, existing as either thermal or non-thermal plasmas. Non-thermal microplasmas that ...

Microprobe A microprobe is an instrument that applies a stable and well-focused beam of charged particles (electrons or ions) to a sample. Types When the primary beam consists of accelerated electrons, the probe is termed an electron microprobe, when the prim ...

Microscale thermophoresis Microscale thermophoresis (MST) is a technology for the biophysical analysis of interactions between biomolecules. Microscale thermophoresis is based on the detection of a temperature-induced change in fluorescence of a target as a function of th ...

Mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...

Mirror galvanometer A mirror galvanometer is an ammeter that indicates it has sensed an electric current by deflecting a light beam with a mirror. The beam of light projected on a scale acts as a long massless pointer. In 1826, Johann Christian Poggendorff devel ...

Mirror mount A mirror mount is a device that holds a mirror. In optics research, these can be quite sophisticated devices, due to the need to be able to tip and tilt the mirror by controlled amounts, while still holding it in a precise position when it is n ...

Missile guidance Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its P ...

* Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser *

Mode-locking Mode locking is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s) or femtoseconds (10−15 s). A laser operated in this way is sometimes r ...

Mode coupling In the term mode coupling, as used in physics and electrical engineering, the word "mode" refers to eigenmodes of an idealized, "unperturbed", linear system. The superposition principle says that eigenmodes of linear systems are independent of each ...

Mode scrambler In telecommunications, a mode scrambler mode mixer is a device for inducing mode coupling in an optical fiber, or a device that, itself, exhibits a uniform output intensity profile independent of the input mode volume or modal excitation condition. ...

* Modulating retro-reflector *

Molecular laser isotope separation Molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS) is a method of isotope separation, where specially tuned lasers are used to separate isotopes of uranium using selective ionization of hyperfine transitions of uranium hexafluoride molecules. It is simila ...

Molecular tagging velocimetry Molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) is a specific form of flow velocimetry, a technique for determining the velocity of currents in fluids such as air and water. In its simplest form, a single "write" laser beam is shot once through the sample spac ...

Monochromator A monochromator is an optical device that transmits a mechanically selectable narrow band of wavelengths of light or other radiation chosen from a wider range of wavelengths available at the input. The name is from the Greek roots ''mono-'', "s ...

Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empir ...

* Mosquito laser *

Motion detection Motion detection is the process of detecting a change in the position of an object relative to its surroundings or a change in the surroundings relative to an object. It can be achieved by either mechanical or electronic methods. When it is done by ...

Multiangle light scattering Multiangle light scattering (MALS) describes a technique for measuring the light scattered by a sample into a plurality of angles. It is used for determining both the absolute molar mass and the average size of molecules in solution, by detectin ...

* Multifocal multiphoton microscopy * Multiphase topology optimisation *

Multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan Multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan (MIIPS) is a method used in ultrashort laser technology that simultaneously measures (phase characterization), and compensates (phase correction) femtosecond laser pulses using an adaptive pulse shape ...

Multiple-prism dispersion theory The first description of multiple-prism arrays, and multiple-prism dispersion, was given by Newton in his book ''Opticks''. Prism pair expanders were introduced by Brewster in 1813. A modern mathematical description of the single-prism dispersio ...

Multiple-prism grating laser oscillator Multiple-prism grating laser oscillators,F. J. Duarte, Narrow-linewidth pulsed dye laser oscillators, in ''Dye Laser Principles'' (Academic, New York, 1990) Chapter 4. or MPG laser oscillators, use multiple-prism beam expansion to illuminate a diff ...

Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System The multiple integrated laser engagement system, or MILES, is used by the U.S. military and other armed forces around the world for training purposes. It uses lasers and blank cartridges to simulate actual battle. Individual soldiers carry small ...

N

N-slit interferometer The ''N''-slit interferometer is an extension of the double-slit experiment, double-slit interferometer also known as Young's double-slit interferometer. One of the first known uses of ''N''-slit arrays in optics was illustrated by Isaac Newton, Ne ...

N-slit interferometric equation Quantum mechanics was first applied to optics, and interference in particular, by Paul Dirac. Richard Feynman, in his Lectures on Physics, uses Dirac's notation to describe thought experiments on double-slit interference of electrons. Feynman' ...

NRLMSISE-00 NRLMSISE-00 is an empirical, global reference atmospheric model of the Earth from ground to space. It models the temperatures and densities of the atmosphere's components. A primary use of this model is to aid predictions of satellite orbital deca ...

* Nanoimpellers *

Nanolaser A nanolaser is a laser that has nanoscale dimensions and it refers to a micro-/nano- device which can emit light with light or electric excitation of nanowires or other nanomaterials that serve as resonators. A standard feature of nanolasers include ...

Nanoneedle Nanoneedles may be conical or tubular needles in the nanometre size range, made from silicon or boron-nitride with a central bore of sufficient size to allow the passage of large molecules, or solid needles useful in Raman spectroscopy, light emit ...

Nanosecond A nanosecond (ns) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one billionth of a second, that is, of a second, or 10 seconds. The term combines the SI prefix ''nano-'' indicating a 1 billionth submultiple of an SI unit ( ...

* Nanosight *

National Ignition Facility The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, United States. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition wit ...

* Nd:YAG laser * Nd:glass laser *

NeXT Laser Printer The NeXT Laser Printer eXT PN N2000was a 400 DPI PostScript laser printer, sold by NeXT from late to for the NeXTstation and NeXTcube workstations and manufactured by Canon Inc.Near-field scanning optical microscope Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) or scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) is a microscopy technique for nanostructure investigation that breaks the far field resolution limit by exploiting the properties of evanescent waves ...

Negative temperature Certain systems can achieve negative thermodynamic temperature; that is, their temperature can be expressed as a negative quantity on the Kelvin or Rankine scales. This should be distinguished from temperatures expressed as negative numbers ...

Neutral density filter In photography and optics, a neutral-density filter, or ND filter, is a filter that reduces or modifies the intensity of all wavelengths, or colors, of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition. It can be a colorless (clear) ...

Newton's flaming laser sword Michael D. Alder is an Australian mathematician, formerly an assistant professor at the University of Western Australia. Alder is known for his popular writing, such as sardonic articles about the lack of basic arithmetic skills in young adults. ...

* Nicoll-Dyson Laser *

Nike laser The Nike laser at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC is a 56-beam, 4–5 kJ per pulse electron beam pumped krypton fluoride excimer laser which operates in the ultraviolet at 248 nm with pulsewidths of a few ...

Nitrogen laser A nitrogen laser is a gas laser operating in the ultraviolet rangeC. S. Willett, ''Introduction to Gas Lasers: Population Inversion Mechanisms'' (Pergamon, New York,1974). (typically 337.1 nm) using molecular nitrogen as its gain medium, pum ...

Noble gas The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low chemi ...

* Noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectroscopy *

Non-ionizing radiation Non-ionizing (or non-ionising) radiation refers to any type of electromagnetic radiation that does not carry enough energy per quantum (photon energy) to ionize atoms or molecules—that is, to completely remove an electron from an atom or molec ...

Nonlinear optics Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typica ...

Novette laser Novette was a two beam neodymium glass (phosphate glass) testbed laser built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in about 15 months throughout 1981 and 1982 and was completed in January 1983. Novette was made using recycled parts from the dis ...

Nuclear fusion-fission hybrid Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

Nuclear photonic rocket In a traditional nuclear photonic rocket, an onboard nuclear reactor would generate such high temperatures that the blackbody radiation from the reactor would provide significant thrust. The disadvantage is that it takes much power to generate a s ...

Nuclear pumped laser A nuclear pumped laser is a laser pumped with the energy of fission fragments. The lasing medium is enclosed in a tube lined with uranium-235 and subjected to high neutron flux in a nuclear reactor core. The fission fragments of the uranium crea ...

* Numerical aperture

O

* OMAC Laser 300 *

Open fiber control In telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a dist ...

* Optical Express * Optical amplifier *

Optical autocorrelation In optics, various autocorrelation functions can be experimentally realized. The field autocorrelation may be used to calculate the spectrum of a source of light, while the intensity autocorrelation and the interferometric autocorrelation are com ...

* Optical beam dump * Optical beam induced current *

Optical bistability In optics, optical bistability is an attribute of certain optical devices where two resonant transmissions states are possible and stable, dependent on the input. Optical devices with a feedback mechanism, e.g. a laser, provide two methods of achi ...

* Optical cavity *

Optical coherence tomography Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique that uses low-coherence light to capture micrometer-resolution, two- and three-dimensional images from within optical scattering media (e.g., biological tissue). It is used for medical ...

* Optical cross section * Optical decay * Optical dilatometer *

Optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only r ...

* Optical downconverter *

Optical feedback Video feedback is the process that starts and continues when a video camera is pointed at its own playback video monitor. The loop delay from camera to display back to camera is at least one video frame time, due to the input and output scannin ...

Optical heterodyne detection Optical heterodyne detection is a method of extracting information encoded as modulation of the phase, frequency or both of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength band of visible or infrared light. The light signal is compared with standard o ...

Optical imaging Medical optical imaging is the use of light as an investigational :wikt:imaging, imaging technique for medical applications. Examples include optical microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, laser Doppler imaging, and opti ...

Optical interferometry Interferometry is a technique which uses the '' interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber opt ...

Optical lattice An optical lattice is formed by the interference of counter-propagating laser beams, creating a spatially periodic polarization pattern. The resulting periodic potential may trap neutral atoms via the Stark shift. Atoms are cooled and congrega ...

* Optical lift *

Optical media preservation The preservation of optical media is essential because it is a resource in libraries, and stores audio, video, and computer data to be accessed by patrons. While optical discs are generally more reliable and durable than older media types, (magne ...

Optical microcavity An optical microcavity or microresonator is a structure formed by reflecting faces on the two sides of a spacer layer or optical medium, or by wrapping a waveguide in a circular fashion to form a ring. The former type is a standing wave cavity, a ...

* Optical modulation amplitude *

Optical modulator An optical modulator is a device which is used to modulate a beam of light. The beam may be carried over free space, or propagated through an optical waveguide (optical fibre). Depending on the parameter of a light beam which is manipulated, modul ...

Optical molasses Optical molasses is a laser cooling technique that can cool neutral atoms to temperatures lower than a magneto-optical trap (MOT). An optical molasses consists of 3 pairs of counter-propagating circularly polarized laser beams intersecting in the ...

Optical parametric amplifier An optical parametric amplifier, abbreviated OPA, is a laser light source that emits light of variable wavelengths by an optical parametric amplifier, parametric amplification process. It is essentially the same as an optical parametric oscillator, ...

Optical parametric oscillator An optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is a parametric oscillator that oscillates at optical frequencies. It converts an input laser wave (called "pump") with frequency \omega_p into two output waves of lower frequency (\omega_s, \omega_i) by mean ...

* Optical power budget * Optical pumping *

Optical recording The history of optical recording can be divided into a few number of distinct major contributions. The pioneers of optical recording worked mostly independently, and their solutions to the many technical challenges have very distinctive features, su ...

Optical ring resonators An optical ring resonator is a set of waveguides in which at least one is a closed loop coupled to some sort of light input and output. (These can be, but are not limited to being, waveguides.) The concepts behind optical ring resonators are the s ...

Optical storage IBM defines optical storage as "any storage method that uses a laser to store and retrieve data from optical media." '' Britannica'' notes that it "uses low-power laser beams to record and retrieve digital (binary) data." Compact disc (CD) an ...

Optical table An optical table is a vibration control platform that is used to support systems used for laser- and optics-related experiments in science, engineering and manufacturing. The surfaces of these tables are designed to be very rigid with minimum de ...

* Optical tape *

Optical train An optical train, also called an optical assembly, is an arrangement of optical components (e.g. lenses, mirrors, Prism (optics), prisms) to guide a sightline, line of sight and/or a laser beam. For example, the position and angle of lenses may b ...

Optical tweezers Optical tweezers (originally called single-beam gradient force trap) are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic and sub-microscopic objects like atoms, nanoparticles and droplets, in a manner simila ...

Optimax Optimax is a laser eye treatment specialist based in Birmingham, England, owned by Russell Keith Ambrose. Optimax was established as one of the first private clinics to offer laser eye surgery. Laser eye surgery in the UK is dominated by three ...

* Optimized Power Control *

Orbiter Boom Sensor System The Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) was a 50-foot (15.24 m) boom carried on board NASA's Space Shuttles. The boom was grappled by the Canadarm and served as an extension of the arm, doubling its length to a combined total of 100 feet (30 m). At ...

* Organic photorefractive materials *

Ormosil Ormosil is a shorthand phrase for ''organically modified silica'' or ''organically modified silicate''. In general, ormosils are produced by adding silane to silica-derived gel during the sol-gel process. They are engineered materials that show gr ...

* Oscillator linewidth *

Output coupler An output coupler (OC) is the component of an optical resonator that allows the extraction of a portion of the light from the laser's intracavity beam. An output coupler most often consists of a partially reflective mirror, allowing a certain po ...

P

PDLCT The PDLCT (for ''Pod de désignation laser caméra thermique'', "thermic camera-mounted laser designation pod") is a french targeting pod build for Thomson-CSF Thomson-CSF was a French company that specialized in the development and manufactu ...

* PITZ * PPCT *

PVLAS PVLAS (Polarizzazione del Vuoto con LASer, "polarization of the vacuum with laser") aims to carry out a test of quantum electrodynamics and possibly detect dark matter at the Department of Physics and National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Ferra ...

Particle-size distribution The particle-size distribution (PSD) of a powder, or granular material, or particles dispersed in fluid, is a list of values or a mathematical function that defines the relative amount, typically by mass, of particles present according to size. Sig ...

Particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

Particle counter A particle counter is used for monitoring and diagnosing particle contamination within specific clean media, including air, water and chemicals. Particle counters are used in a variety of applications in support of clean manufacturing practices, ...

* Particle image velocimetry *

Particle tracking velocimetry Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) is a velocimetry method i.e. a technique to measure velocities and trajectories of moving objects. In fluid mechanics research these objects are neutrally buoyant particles that are suspended in fluid flow. As th ...

Pascal Photocoagulator The PASCAL Photocoagulator is an integrated semi-automatic pattern scan laser photocoagulation system designed to treat ocular diseases using a single shot or predetermined pattern array. The device is for ophthalmologists, particularly those that ...

Paser A PASER (an acronym from ''Particle Acceleration by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)'' is a device that accelerates a coherent beam of electrons. This process was demonstrated for the first time in 2006 at the Brookhaven National Lab by a team o ...

Pauli exclusion principle In quantum mechanics, the Pauli exclusion principle states that two or more identical particles with half-integer spins (i.e. fermions) cannot occupy the same quantum state within a quantum system simultaneously. This principle was formulated ...

Pave Spike The Westinghouse AN/ASQ-153\AN/AVQ-23 Pave Spike is an electro-optical laser designator targeting pod used to direct laser-guided bombs to target in daylight, visual conditions. It contained a laser boresighted to a television camera, which disp ...

Pave Tack The Ford Aerospace AN/AVQ-26 Pave Tack is an electro-optical targeting pod for military attack aircraft. It uses a laser and a forward looking infrared to find and designate targets for laser-guided bombs and other precision-guided munitions. Pa ...

Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is ...

Penning trap A Penning trap is a device for the storage of charged particles using a homogeneous axial magnetic field and an inhomogeneous quadrupole electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited to precision measurements of properties of io ...

Peresvet Peresvet (russian: Пересве́т) is a town in Sergiyevo-Posadsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Kunya River (Dubna's tributary) northeast of Moscow and north of Sergiyev Posad, the administrative center of the district. ...

* Personnel Detection Device * Peter Harrison Planetarium, is a 120-seat digital laser planetarium *

Phased-array optics Phased-array optics is the technology of controlling the phase and amplitude of light waves transmitting, reflecting, or captured (received) by a two-dimensional surface using adjustable surface elements. An optical phased array (OPA) is the optica ...

* PHASR,

Personnel halting and stimulation response rifle The personnel halting and stimulation response rifle (PHASR) is a prototype non-lethal laser dazzler developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, U.S. Department of Defense. Its purpose is to temporarily disorient ...

Phoenix (spacecraft) ''Phoenix'' was an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated until November 2, 2008. ''Phoenix'' was operational on Mars for sols ( days). Its instruments were used to assess the local habitabilit ...

* Photoablation * Photoconductive atomic force microscopy *

Photodarkening Photodarkening is an optical effect observed in the interaction of laser radiation with amorphous media (glasses) in optical fibers. Until now, such creation of color centers was reported only in glass fibers. Photodarkening limits the density of e ...

* Photodissociation *

Photodynamic therapy Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a form of phototherapy involving light and a photosensitizing chemical substance, used in conjunction with molecular oxygen to elicit cell death (phototoxicity). PDT is popularly used in treating acne. It is used cl ...

Photoelectrochemical processes Photoelectrochemical processes are processes in photoelectrochemistry; they usually involve transforming light into other forms of energy. These processes apply to photochemistry, optically pumped lasers, sensitized solar cells, luminescence, and ...

Photoemission spectroscopy Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), also known as photoelectron spectroscopy, refers to energy measurement of electrons emitted from solids, gases or liquids by the photoelectric effect, in order to determine the binding energies of electrons in th ...

Photoflash capacitor A photoflash capacitor is an electrolytic capacitor used in flash cameras, professional flashes, and also in solid-state laser power supplies. Their usual purpose is to briefly power a high-voltage flash tube, used to illuminate a photographic su ...

* Photofragment-ion imaging * Photoionization mode *

Photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...

Photomixing Photomixing is the generation of continuous wave terahertz radiation from two lasers. The beams are mixed together and focused onto a photomixer device which generates the terahertz radiation. It is technologically significant because there are fe ...

Photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always ...

Photon Doppler velocimetry Photon Doppler velocimetry (PDV) is a one-dimensional Fourier transform analysis of a heterodyne laser interferometry, used in the shock physics community to measure velocities in dynamic experiments with high temporal precision. PDV was develope ...

Photon antibunching Photon antibunching generally refers to a light field with photons more equally spaced than a coherent laser field, a signature being signals at appropriate detectors which are anticorrelated. More specifically, it can refer to sub-Poissonian ph ...

Photonic-crystal fiber Photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) is a class of optical fiber based on the properties of photonic crystals. It was first explored in 1996 at University of Bath, UK. Because of its ability to confine light in hollow cores or with confinement charact ...

* Photonic force microscope * Photonic integrated circuit *

Photonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...

Photonics Spectra Photonics Spectra is a monthly business-to-business (B2B) magazine published for the engineers, scientists, and end users who develop, commercialize and buy photonic products. It provides both technical and applications information for all aspect ...

Photophoresis Photophoresis denotes the phenomenon that small particles suspended in gas (aerosols) or liquids (hydrocolloids) start to migrate when illuminated by a sufficiently intense beam of light. The existence of this phenomenon is owed to a non-uniform d ...

Photoplotter A photoplotter is a specialized electro-opto-mechanical machine that exposes a latent image on a medium, usually high-contrast monochromatic (black-and-white) photographic film, using a light source under computer control. Once the film has been e ...

* Photorefractive effect *

Photothermal effect Photothermal effect is a phenomenon associated with electromagnetic radiation. It is produced by the photoexcitation of material, resulting in the production of thermal energy (heat). It is sometimes used during treatment of blood vessel lesions, ...

* Photothermal spectroscopy * Planar Doppler velocimetry *

Planar laser-induced fluorescence Planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) is an optical diagnostic technique widely used for flow visualization and quantitative measurements. PLIF has been shown to be used for velocity, concentration, temperature and pressure measurements. Wo ...

Planetarium projector A planetarium projector, also known as a star projector, is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium. Modern planetarium projectors were first designed and built by the Carl Zeiss Jena company in Germa ...

Plasma Acoustic Shield System The Plasma Acoustic Shield System, or PASS, is in the process of being developed by Stellar Photonics. The company received a $2.7 million contract from the U.S. Government to build the PASS. It is part of a project supervised by the United States ...

Plasma acceleration Plasma acceleration is a technique for accelerating charged particles, such as electrons, positrons, and ions, using the electric field associated with electron plasma wave or other high-gradient plasma structures (like shock and sheath fields). ...

Plasma channel A plasma channel is a conductive channel of plasma. A plasma channel can be formed in the following ways. # With a high-powered laser that operates at a certain frequency that will provide enough energy for an atmospheric gas to break into its io ...

Plasma cutting Plasma cutting is a process that cuts through electrically conductive materials by means of an accelerated jet of hot plasma. Typical materials cut with a plasma torch include steel, stainless steel, aluminum, brass and copper, although other c ...

Plasma stealth Plasma stealth is a proposed process to use ionized gas (plasma (physics), plasma) to reduce the radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft. Interactions between electromagnetic radiation and ionized gas have been extensively studied for many purpose ...

Plasma weapon A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include w ...

Plastic surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofa ...

Platesetter Computer-to-plate (CTP) is an imaging technology used in modern printing processes. In this technology, an image created in a Desktop Publishing (DTP) application is output directly to a printing plate. This compares with the older technology, co ...

Plymouth Laser The Plymouth Laser is a two-door 2+2 sports coupe sold by Plymouth from 1989 until 1994. The Laser and its siblings, the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Eagle Talon, were the first vehicles produced under the newly formed Diamond-Star Motors, a joint-v ...

* Point-to-point laser technology (PPLT) *

Polariton laser A polariton laser is a novel type of laser source that exploits the coherent nature of Bose condensates of exciton-polaritons in semiconductors to achieve ultra-low threshold lasing. In 1996, Imamoglu ''et al.'' proposed such a novel type of coher ...

Polarization ripples Polarization ripples are parallel oscillations which have been observed since the 1960s on the bottom of pulsed laser irradiation of semiconductors. They have the property to be very dependent to the orientation of the laser electric field. Sinc ...

Polyus (spacecraft) The Polyus spacecraft (russian: Полюс, ''pole''), also known as Polus, Skif-DM, GRAU index 17F19DM, was a prototype Soviet orbital weapons platform designed to destroy Strategic Defense Initiative satellites with a megawatt carbon-di ...

* Ponderomotive energy *

Population inversion In science, specifically statistical mechanics, a population inversion occurs while a system (such as a group of atoms or molecules) exists in a state in which more members of the system are in higher, excited states than in lower, unexcited energy ...

Potassium titanyl phosphate Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospher ...

* Pound–Drever–Hall technique *

Power scaling Power scaling of a laser is increasing its output power without changing the geometry, shape, or principle of operation. Power scalability is considered an important advantage in a laser design. this means it can increase power without changing outs ...

Precision-guided munition A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gul ...

Precision bombing Precision bombing refers to the attempted aerial bombing of a target with some degree of accuracy, with the aim of maximising target damage or limiting collateral damage. An example would be destroying a single building in a built up area causing ...

Precrash system A collision avoidance system (CAS), also known as a pre-crash system, forward collision warning system, or collision mitigation system, is an advanced driver-assistance system designed to prevent or reduce the severity of a collision. In its ...

Printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

Prism coupler A prism coupler is a prism designed to couple a substantial fraction of the power contained in a beam of light (e.g., a laser beam) into a thin film to be used as a waveguide without the need for precision polishing of the edge of the film, witho ...

Projection keyboard A projection keyboard is a form of computer input device whereby the image of a virtual keyboard is projected onto a surface: when a user touches the surface covered by an image of a key, the device records the corresponding keystroke. Some connect ...

Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons The Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, was issued by the United Nations on 13 October 1995. It came into force on 30 July 1998. As of the end of April 2018, the protocol had been ...

Pulsed laser Pulsed operation of lasers refers to any laser not classified as continuous wave, so that the optical power appears in pulses of some duration at some repetition rate. Silfvast, William T. (1996). ''Laser Fundamentals'', Cambridge University Press. ...

Pulse repetition frequency The pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is the number of pulses of a repeating signal in a specific time unit. The term is used within a number of technical disciplines, notably radar. In radar, a radio signal of a particular carrier frequency is tu ...

Pulsed Energy Projectile Pulsed energy projectile or PEP is a technology of non-lethal weaponry. The U.S. military is developing PEP using an invisible laser pulse which ablates the target's surface and creates a small amount of exploding plasma. This produces a pressure ...

, Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser *

Pulsed energy weapon A pulsed energy weapon is any weapon that: * uses pulses of electricity to fire a projectile, or * operates by transferring electric current to its target. These weapons often use large capacitors to build up a charge which is released when the we ...

Pulsed laser deposition Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique where a high-power pulsed laser beam is focused inside a vacuum chamber to strike a target of the material that is to be deposited. This material is vaporized from the ...

Pulsed power Pulsed power is the science and technology of accumulating energy over a relatively long period of time and releasing it instantly, thus increasing the instantaneous power. They can be used in some applications such as food processing, water treatme ...

Pursuit guidance Pursuit guidance, or a pursuit course, is a form of guidance widely used in older guided missiles. In pursuit guidance, the missile is steered so that the velocity vector of the missile always points at the target, i.e. it has always the directio ...

Q

Q-switching Q-switching, sometimes known as giant pulse formation or Q-spoiling, is a technique by which a laser can be made to produce a pulsed output beam. The technique allows the production of light pulses with extremely high (gigawatt) peak power, much hi ...

* Q factor * Quantapoint *

Quantum amplifier In physics, a quantum amplifier is an amplifier that uses quantum mechanical methods to amplify a signal; examples include the active elements of lasers and optical amplifiers. The main properties of the quantum amplifier are its amplification coe ...

Quantum cascade laser Quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) are semiconductor lasers that emit in the mid- to far-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and were first demonstrated by Jérôme Faist, Federico Capasso, Deborah Sivco, Carlo Sirtori, Albert Hutchinson, ...

* Quantum clock *

Quantum defect The term quantum defect refers to two concepts: energy loss in lasers and energy levels in alkali elements. Both deal with quantum systems where matter interacts with light. In laser science In laser science, the term "quantum defect" refers to t ...

Quantum dot Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size, having light, optical and electronics, electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles as a result of quantum mechanics. They are a central topic in nanote ...

Quantum dot laser A quantum dot laser is a semiconductor laser that uses quantum dots as the active laser medium in its light emitting region. Due to the tight confinement of charge carriers in quantum dots, they exhibit an electronic structure similar to atoms. La ...

Quantum heterostructure A quantum heterostructure is a heterostructure in a substrate (usually a semiconductor material), where size restricts the movements of the charge carriers forcing them into a quantum confinement. This leads to the formation of a set of discrete e ...

Quantum imaging Quantum imaging is a new sub-field of quantum optics that exploits quantum correlations such as quantum entanglement of the electromagnetic field in order to image objects with a resolution or other imaging criteria that is beyond what is possible ...

Quantum limit A quantum limit in physics is a limit on measurement accuracy at quantum scales. Depending on the context, the limit may be absolute (such as the Heisenberg limit), or it may only apply when the experiment is conducted with naturally occurring qu ...

Quantum noise Quantum noise is noise arising from the indeterminate state of matter in accordance with fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, specifically the uncertainty principle and via zero-point energy fluctuations. Quantum noise is due to the appa ...

Quantum tomography Quantum tomography or quantum state tomography is the process by which a quantum state is reconstructed using measurements on an ensemble of identical quantum states. The source of these states may be any device or system which prepares quantum st ...

Quantum well A quantum well is a potential well with only discrete energy values. The classic model used to demonstrate a quantum well is to confine particles, which were initially free to move in three dimensions, to two dimensions, by forcing them to occupy ...

Quantum well laser A quantum well laser is a laser diode in which the active region of the device is so narrow that quantum confinement occurs. Laser diodes are formed in compound semiconductor materials that (quite unlike silicon) are able to emit light efficientl ...

Quenching (fluorescence) Quenching refers to any process which decreases the fluorescence intensity of a given substance. A variety of processes can result in quenching, such as excited state reactions, energy transfer, complex-formation and collisional quenching. As a c ...

R

Radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

Radar detector A radar detector is an electronic device used by motorists to detect if their speed is being monitored by police or law enforcement using a radar gun. Most radar detectors are used so the driver can reduce the car's speed before being ticketed ...

Radar gun A radar speed gun (also radar gun and speed trap gun) is a device used to measure the speed of moving objects. It is used in law-enforcement to measure the speed of moving vehicles and is often used in professional spectator sport, for things su ...

* Radial polarization *

Rail inspection Rail inspection is the practice of examining rail tracks for flaws that could lead to catastrophic failures. According to the United States Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis, track defects are the second leading cause of ...

* Rainbow hologram *

Raman cooling In atomic physics, Raman cooling is a sub-recoil cooling technique that allows the cooling of atoms using optical methods below the limitations of Doppler cooling, Doppler cooling being limited by the recoil energy of a photon given to an atom. T ...

Raman laser A Raman laser is a specific type of laser in which the fundamental light-amplification mechanism is Raman effect#Stimulated Raman scattering and Raman amplification, stimulated Raman scattering. In contrast, most "conventional" lasers (such as the r ...

Raman microscope The Raman microscope is a laser-based microscopic device used to perform Raman spectroscopy.''Microscopical techniques in the use of the molecular optics laser examiner Raman microprobe'', by M. E. Andersen, R. Z. Muggli, Analytical Chemistry, 19 ...

Raman scattering Raman scattering or the Raman effect () is the inelastic scattering of photons by matter, meaning that there is both an exchange of energy and a change in the light's direction. Typically this effect involves vibrational energy being gained by a ...

Random laser A random laser (RL) is a laser in which optical feedback is provided by scattering particles. As in conventional lasers, a gain medium is required for optical amplification. However, in contrast to Fabry–Pérot cavities and distributed feedback ...

Range imaging Range imaging is the name for a collection of techniques that are used to produce a 2D image showing the distance to points in a scene from a specific point, normally associated with some type of sensor device. The resulting range image has pix ...

Rangefinder A rangefinder (also rangefinding telemeter, depending on the context) is a device used to measure distances to remote objects. Originally optical devices used in surveying, they soon found applications in other fields, such as photography an ...

Rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides ( yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silv ...

Rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

Ray transfer matrix analysis Ray transfer matrix analysis (also known as ABCD matrix analysis) is a mathematical form for performing ray tracing calculations in sufficiently simple problems which can be solved considering only paraxial rays. Each optical element (surface, in ...

Raygun A raygun is a science-fiction directed-energy weapon that releases energy, usually with destructive effect.Jeff Prucher, '' Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction,'' Oxford University Press, 2007, page 162 They have vario ...

Rayleigh length In optics and especially laser science, the Rayleigh length or Rayleigh range, z_\mathrm, is the distance along the propagation direction of a beam from the waist to the place where the area of the cross section is doubled. A related parameter ...

Reciprocity (photography) In photography, reciprocity is the inverse relationship between the intensity and duration of light that determines the reaction of light-sensitive material. Within a normal exposure range for film stock, for example, the reciprocity law states t ...

* Recoil temperature * Reference beam *

Reflectron A reflectron (mass reflectron) is a type of time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF MS) that comprises a pulsed ion source, field-free region, ion mirror, and ion detector and uses a static or time dependent electric field in the ion mirror to rev ...

Refrigeration The term refrigeration refers to the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature.International Dictionary of Refrigeration, http://dictionary.iifiir.org/search.phpASHRAE Terminology, ht ...

Regenerative amplification In laser science, regenerative amplification is a process used to generate short but strong pulses of laser light. It is based on a pulse trapped in a laser resonator, which stays in there until it extracts all of the energy stored in the amplifi ...

* Relative fluorescence units *

Relative intensity noise Relative intensity noise (RIN), describes the instability in the power (physics), power level of a laser. The noise term is important to describe lasers used in fiber-optic communication and LIDAR remote sensing. Relative intensity noise can be gen ...

Relativistic electron beam Relativistic electron beams are streams of electrons moving at relativistic speeds. They are the lasing medium in free electron lasers to be used in atmospheric research conducted at entities such as the Pan-oceanic Environmental and Atmospheric ...

Relativistic heat conduction Relativistic heat conduction refers to the modelling of heat conduction (and similar diffusion processes) in a way compatible with special relativity. In special (and general) relativity, the usual heat equation for non-relativistic heat conduct ...

Relativistic similarity parameter In relativistic laser-plasma physics the relativistic similarity parameter ''S'' is a dimensionless parameter defined as : S=\frac, where is the electron plasma density, is the critical plasma density and is the normalized vector potential. H ...

* Resolution enhancement technology *

Resolved sideband cooling Resolved sideband cooling is a laser cooling technique allowing cooling of tightly bound atoms and ions beyond the Doppler cooling limit, potentially to their motional ground state. Aside from the curiosity of having a particle at zero point energy, ...

Resonance Raman spectroscopy Resonance Raman spectroscopy (RR spectroscopy) is a Raman spectroscopy technique in which the incident photon energy is close in energy to an electronic transition of a compound or material under examination. The frequency coincidence (or ''resonan ...

Resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization Resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) is a technique applied to the spectroscopy of atoms and small molecules. In practice, a tunable laser can be used to access an excited intermediate state. The selection rules associated with ...

Ring laser Ring lasers are composed of two beams of light of the same polarization traveling in opposite directions ("counter-rotating") in a closed loop. Ring lasers are used most frequently as gyroscopes ( ring laser gyroscope) in moving vessels like c ...

Ring laser gyroscope A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) consists of a ring laser having two independent counter-propagating resonant modes over the same path; the difference in phase is used to detect rotation. It operates on the principle of the Sagnac effect which shifts ...

Rocket-assisted projectile A rocket-assisted projectile (RAP) is a cannon, howitzer, mortar, or recoilless rifle round incorporating a rocket motor for independent propulsion. This gives the projectile greater speed and range than a non-assisted ballistic shell, which is ...

Roketsan Cirit Cirit is a laser-guided 70 mm missile system under production by Turkish arms industry manufacturer ROKETSAN. It is one of the projects launched by Turkey to equip the Turkish Army's T-129 Atak, AH-1P Cobra and AH-1W Super Cobra attack hel ...

Ruby laser A ruby laser is a solid-state laser that uses a synthetic ruby crystal as its gain medium. The first working laser was a ruby laser made by Theodore H. "Ted" Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories on May 16, 1960. Ruby lasers produce pulses of c ...

Rydberg ionization spectroscopy Rydberg ionization spectroscopy is a spectroscopy technique in which multiple photons are absorbed by an atom causing the removal of an electron to form an ion. Resonance ionization spectroscopy The ionization threshold energy of atoms and small ...

Rydberg molecule A Rydberg molecule is an electronically excited chemical species. Electronically excited molecular states are generally quite different in character from electronically excited atomic states. However, particularly for highly electronically excited ...

Rydberg state The Rydberg states of an atom or molecule are electronically excited states with energies that follow the Rydberg formula as they converge on an ionic state with an ionization energy. Although the Rydberg formula was developed to describe atomic e ...

* Rytov number

S

SCALPEL A scalpel, lancet, or bistoury is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, podiatry and various arts and crafts (either called a hobby knife or an X-acto knife.). Scalpels may be single-use disposa ...

, Small Contained-Area Laser Precision Energetic Load *

SEAgel SEAgel (Safe Emulsion Agar gel) is one of a class of high-tech foam materials known as aerogels. It is an excellent thermal insulator and among the least dense solids known. SEAgel was invented by Robert Morrison at the Lawrence Livermore Nation ...

SWEEPNIK SWEEPNIK was a device designed by Otto Frisch that used a sweeping laser to follow bubble chamber tracks. It was later used to follow roads as an aid to the Digitization, digitisation of maps.

Sagnac effect The Sagnac effect, also called Sagnac interference, named after French physicist Georges Sagnac, is a phenomenon encountered in interferometry that is elicited by rotation. The Sagnac effect manifests itself in a setup called a ring interferomet ...

SASER Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) refers to a device that emits acoustic radiation. It focuses sound waves in a way that they can serve as accurate and high-speed carriers of information in many kinds of applications� ...

, Sound Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation *

Satellite geodesy Satellite geodesy is geodesy by means of artificial satellites—the measurement of the form and dimensions of Earth, the location of objects on its surface and the figure of the Earth's gravity field by means of artificial satellite techniques ...

Satellite laser ranging In satellite laser ranging (SLR) a global network of observation stations measures the round trip time of flight of ultrashort pulses of light to satellites equipped with retroreflectors. This provides instantaneous range measurements of milli ...

* Saturated absorption * Saturated spectroscopy * Scanning laser ophthalmoscopy * Scanning voltage microscopy * Scattering from rough surfaces * Second-harmonic generation * Second-harmonic imaging microscopy * Security seal * Selective laser melting * Selective laser sintering * Self-amplified stimulated emission * Self-focusing * Self-mixing interferometry * Self-phase modulation * Self-pulsation * Semiconductor ring laser * Sensor based sorting * Serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM) * Shearography * Shielding gas * Shiva laser * Shtora * Sight (device) * Signal beam * Silex Process * Sim scanner * Single photon sources * Sisyphus cooling * Sisyphus effect * Skin whitening * Skyguard (airport defense system) * Slapper detonator * Slope efficiency * Smith–Purcell effect * Smoke detector * Smoke screen * Sniper * Soft-tissue laser surgery * Soft laser desorption * Solar-pumped laser * Solar sail * Solid-state laser * Solid-state dye laser * Soviet laser pistol * Space-based solar power * Space debris * Spaser, Surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation * Spatial filter * Spatial light modulator * Spatially Encoded Arrangement for SPIDER * Speckle pattern * Spectral hole burning * Spectrometer * Spectroscopy * Speed limit enforcement * Spontaneous emission * Stage lighting * Starfire Optical Range * Starstreak (missile) * Static light scattering * Stealth aircraft * Stealth technology * Stereoscopy * Stimulated emission * Strainmeter * Strategic Defense Initiative * Streamlight * Strong confinement limit * Strontium vapor laser * Structured-light 3D scanner * Sum-frequency generation * Sum frequency generation spectroscopy * Super resolution microscopy * Supercontinuum * Supercritical angle fluorescence microscopy * Superluminescent diode * Superradiance * Surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization * Surround optical-fiber immunoassay (SOFIA) * SwissFEL * Synchrotron light source * Synthetic aperture radar * Synthetic diamond

T

* TEA laser * TIALD, Thermal Imaging Airborne Laser Designator Pod * Tactical High Energy Laser * Tactical light * Talbot cavity * Targeting (warfare) * Targeting pods * Taser * Terahertz radiation * Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy * Terra-3 * Tetracene * Theatrical smoke and fog * Theodolite * Thermal blooming * Thermal laser stimulation * Thermal shock parameter in the physics of solid-state lasers * Thermopile laser sensor * Thin film * Three-level laser * Ti-sapphire laser, Ti:sapphire laser * Time-of-flight camera * Time-of-flight mass spectrometry * Time-resolved spectroscopy * Time of flight * Titan laser * Toda oscillator * Toner * Toner cartridge * Toner refill * Tophat beam * Trabeculoplasty * Track and trace * Transistor laser * Transoral laser microsurgery * Transparency and translucency * Transparent ceramics * Transverse mode * TriDAR * Trident laser * Trotec * Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy * Tunable laser * Turbulent diffusion * Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy * Two-photon absorption * Two-photon excitation microscopy * Type 87 Chu-MAT

U

* Ultra Density Optical disk format * Ultracold atom * Ultrafast laser spectroscopy * Ultrafast monochromator * Ultralase * Ultrashort pulse * Ultrashort pulse laser * Ultrasonic flow meter * Ultraviolet * Undulator

V

* VORPAL * VTech Laser 200 * Vector soliton fiber laser with atomic layer graphene * Veiling-glare laser * Verdet constant * Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser * Vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting-laser * Videodisc * Videometer * Virgo interferometer * Visotek * Volume hologram * Vulcan laser

W

* Wall-plug efficiency * Warm dense matter * Waveguide (optics) * Wavelength-division multiplexing * Weapon effects simulation * Wideband materials * Wireless energy transfer

X

* X-ray * X-ray laser * Xenon chloride laser * Xerox

Y

* Yb:LuVO4

Z

* ZETA (fusion reactor) * ZEUS-HLONS (HMMWV Laser Ordnance Neutralization System) * Zeeman slower * Zerona

References

{{Lasers Lasers, Lists of topics, Laser Physics-related lists

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See also

References