Anomalous dispersion means that the lower-frequency components are slower relative to the higher frequency components ie red trails blue; corresponds to negative group velocity dispersion, meaning a negative chirp.
Glossary Term Archives
biaxial crystal
A biaxial crystal has two optic axes, both being extraordinary wave axes. Examples of biaxial crystals are all of the monoclinic, triclinic, and orthorhombic crystal systems.
birefringent crystals
Birefringence is a case of an anisotropic optical property, and refers specifically to materials that have a refractive index (or susceptibility) that depends on the direction of propagation and the polarization of light in a medium. Birefringent crystals can be either uniaxial or biaxial.
Dispersion
Dispersion refers to the case when the spectrum of a beam of light is dependent on parameters such as space or time, which are referred to as spatial or temporal dispersion, respectively. Spatial dispersion is involved whenever you have a grating pair, prism, or other component that physically separates different spectral components of incident lightContinue reading “Dispersion”
electric susceptibility
In the presence of an electric field, the amount of polarization possible in a dielectric material.
isotropic dielectric medium
A dielectric whose polarization always has a direction that is parallel to the applied electric field, and a magnitude which does not depend on the direction of the electric field. SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Laser (oscillator)
“Laser” stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”. In comparison with light from an incandescent source, a laser produces an output that is unidirectional, coherent, and of a small bandwidth. The essential components of a laser oscillator are a pumping source, a gain medium, and a feedback mechanism. The main difference between aContinue reading “Laser (oscillator)”
mode field diameter
Used in fiber optics, the mode field diameter is the effective diameter of the area that light propagating in a fiber will see
normal dispersion
Normal dispersion means that the higher-frequency components are slower relative to the lower frequency components ie blue trails red; corresponds to positive group velocity dispersion, meaning a positive chirp.
p-polarization
Also known as a transverse magnetic field; in this configuration, the magnetic field is pointing in and out of the “normal”, while the electric field is in the plane of the “normal”.