Jena is a city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a population of about 110,000. Jena is a centre of education and research; the university was founded in 1558 and had 18,000 students in 2017 and the Ernst-Abbe-Fachhochschule Jena counts another 5,000 students. Furthermore, there are many institutes of the leading German research societies.
Carl Zeiss AG, branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott he laid the foundation for today's multinational company. The current company emerged from a reunification of Carl Zeiss companies in East and West Germany with a consolidation phase in the 1990s. ZEISS is active in four business segments with approximately equal revenue in almost 50 countries, has 30 production sites and around 25 development sites worldwide.
Ernst Karl Abbe was a German businessman, optical engineer, physicist, and social reformer. Together with Otto Schott and Carl Zeiss, he developed numerous optical instruments. He was also a co-owner of Carl Zeiss AG, a German manufacturer of scientific microscopes, astronomical telescopes, planetariums, and other advanced optical systems.
Gravity Probe B (GP-B) was a satellite-based experiment to test two unverified predictions of general relativity: the geodetic effect and frame-dragging. This was to be accomplished by measuring, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an Earth-orbiting satellite at 650 km (400 mi) of altitude, crossing directly over the poles.
An atom interferometer uses the wave-like nature of atoms in order to produce interference. In atom interferometers, the roles of matter and light are reversed compared to the laser based interferometers, i.e. the beam splitter and mirrors are lasers while the source emits matter waves rather than light. Atom interferometers measure the difference in phase between atomic matter waves along different paths. Matter waves are controlled an manipulated using systems of lasers. Atom interferometers have been used in tests of fundamental physics, including measurements of the gravitational constant, the fine-structure constant, and universality of free fall. Applied uses of atom interferometers include accelerometers, rotation sensors, and gravity gradiometers.
The Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, legally located in Heidenheim an der Brenz and Jena, Germany, and with its administrative headquarters in Stuttgart, is the sole shareholder of the two companies Carl Zeiss AG and Schott AG. It was founded by Ernst Abbe in 1889 and named after his long-term partner Carl Zeiss. The products of these companies include the classic areas of optics and precision mechanisms, as well as glass, optoelectronics, and glass ceramics. The statutes of the foundation emphasize the social responsibility of the companies and the importance of a fair treatment of the employees.
Theodor Wolfgang Hänsch is a German physicist. He received one-third of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for "contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique", sharing the prize with John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber.
An aspheric lens or asphere is a lens whose surface profiles are not portions of a sphere or cylinder. In photography, a lens assembly that includes an aspheric element is often called an aspherical lens.
A gyro gunsight (G.G.S.) is a modification of the non-magnifying reflector sight in which target lead and bullet drop are calculated automatically. The first examples were developed in Britain just before the Second World War for use during aerial combat, and more advanced models were common on Allied aircraft by the end of the war.
Friedrich Otto Schott (1851–1935) was a German chemist, glass technologist, and the inventor of borosilicate glass. Schott systematically investigated the relationship between the chemical composition of the glass and its properties. In this way, he solved fundamental problems in glass properties, identifying compositions with optical properties that approach the theoretical limit. Schott's findings were a major advance in the optics for microscopy and optical astronomy. His work has been described as "a watershed in the history of glass composition".
Optical manufacturing and testing is the process of manufacturing and testing optical components. It spans a wide range of manufacturing procedures and optical test configurations.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF), also referred to as the Fraunhofer IOF, is an institute of the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research (FHG). The institute is based in Jena. Its activities are attributed to applied research and development in the branch of natural sciences in the field of optics and precision engineering. The institute was founded in 1992.
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 silicon optical devices. The hybrid approach takes advantage of the light-emitting properties of III-V semiconductor materials combined with the process maturity of silicon to fabricate electrically driven lasers on a silicon wafer that can be integrated with other silicon photonic devices.
In surveying, a gyrotheodolite is an instrument composed of a gyrocompass mounted to a theodolite. It is used to determine the orientation of true north. It is the main instrument for orientation in mine surveying and in tunnel engineering, where astronomical star sights are not visible and GPS does not work.
Superoscillation is a phenomenon in which a signal which is globally band-limited can contain local segments that oscillate faster than its fastest Fourier components. The idea is originally attributed to Yakir Aharonov, and has been made more popularly known through the work of Michael Berry, who also notes that a similar result was known to Ingrid Daubechies.
Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit, which is due to the diffraction of light. Super-resolution imaging techniques rely on the near-field or on the far-field. Among techniques that rely on the latter are those that improve the resolution only modestly beyond the diffraction-limit, such as confocal microscopy with closed pinhole or aided by computational methods such as deconvolution or detector-based pixel reassignment, the 4Pi microscope, and structured-illumination microscopy technologies such as SIM and SMI.
Maximilian Jacob Herzberger was a German-American mathematician and physicist, known for his development of the superachromat lens.
Jun Ye is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular, and optical physics.
Walter Thompson Welford was a British physicist with expertise in optics.
The scientific community examined several approaches to redefining the kilogram before deciding on a redefinition of the SI base units in November 2018. Each approach had advantages and disadvantages.
