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In optics, the refractive index of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium.
An optical spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials. The variable measured is most often the irradiance of the light but could also, for instance, be the polarization state. The independent variable is usually the wavelength of the light or a unit directly proportional to the photon energy, such as reciprocal centimeters or electron volts, which has a reciprocal relationship to wavelength.
A retroreflector is a device or surface that reflects radiation back to its source with minimum scattering. This works at a wide range of angle of incidence, unlike a planar mirror, which does this only if the mirror is exactly perpendicular to the wave front, having a zero angle of incidence. Being directed, the retroflector's reflection is brighter than that of a diffuse reflector. Corner reflectors and cat's eye reflectors are the most used kinds.
Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be held using both hands, although sizes vary widely from opera glasses to large pedestal-mounted military models.
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on 10,700-foot (3,300 m) Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory.
An optical prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that are designed to refract light. At least one surface must be angled — elements with two parallel surfaces are not prisms. The most familiar type of optical prism is the triangular prism, which has a triangular base and rectangular sides. Not all optical prisms are geometric prisms, and not all geometric prisms would count as an optical prism. Prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, acrylic and fluorite.
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-, "single", and chroma, "colour", and the Latin suffix -ator, denoting an agent.
In optics, a Porro prism, named for its inventor Ignazio Porro, is a type of reflection prism used in optical instruments to alter the orientation of an image.
Littrow may refer to:
Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique for amplifying an 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 stretching and compression uses devices that ensure that the different color components of the pulse travel different distances.
An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid light guides, and liquid waveguides.
An autocollimator is an optical instrument for non-contact measurement of angles. They are typically used to align components and measure deflections in optical or mechanical systems. An autocollimator works by projecting an image onto a target mirror and measuring the deflection of the returned image against a scale, either visually or by means of an electronic detector. A visual autocollimator can measure angles as small as 1 arcsecond, while an electronic autocollimator can have up to 100 times more resolution.
A prism compressor is an optical device used to shorten the duration of a positively chirped ultrashort laser pulse by giving different wavelength components a different time delay. It typically consists of two prisms and a mirror. Figure 1 shows the construction of such a compressor. Although the dispersion of the prism material causes different wavelength components to travel along different paths, the compressor is built such that all wavelength components leave the compressor at different times, but in the same direction. If the different wavelength components of a laser pulse were already separated in time, the prism compressor can make them overlap with each other, thus causing a shorter pulse.
In optics, a dispersive prism is an optical prism that is used to disperse light, that is, to separate light into its spectral components. Different wavelengths (colors) of light will be deflected by the prism at different angles. This is a result of the prism material's index of refraction varying with wavelength (dispersion). Generally, longer wavelengths (red) undergo a smaller deviation than shorter wavelengths (blue). The dispersion of white light into colors by a prism led Sir Isaac Newton to conclude that white light consisted of a mixture of different colors.
Slitless spectroscopy is spectroscopy done without a small slit to allow only light from a small region to be diffracted. It works best in sparsely populated fields, as it spreads each point source out into its spectrum, and crowded fields can be too confused to be useful for some applications. It also faces the problem that for extended sources, nearby emission lines will overlap. This technique is a basic form of snapshot hyperspectral imaging. Slitless spectroscopy is used for astronomical surveys and in fields, such as solar physics, where time evolution is important. Both types of application benefit from higher speed operation of a slitless spectrograph: conventional spectrographs require multiple exposures, scanning the slit across the target, to acquire a complete spectral image, while a slitless spectrograph can capture a complete image plane in one exposure.
The wedge prism is a prism with a shallow angle between its input and output surfaces. This angle is usually 3 degrees or less. Refraction at the surfaces causes the prism to deflect light by a fixed angle. When viewing a scene through such a prism, objects will appear to be offset by an amount that varies with their distance from the prism.
Multiple-prism grating laser oscillators, or MPG laser oscillators, use multiple-prism beam expansion to illuminate a diffraction grating mounted either in Littrow configuration or grazing-incidence configuration. Originally, these narrow-linewidth tunable dispersive oscillators were introduced as multiple-prism Littrow (MPL) grating oscillators, or hybrid multiple-prism near-grazing-incidence (HMPGI) grating cavities, in organic dye lasers. However, these designs were quickly adopted for other types of lasers such as gas lasers, diode lasers, and more recently fiber lasers.
A prism spectrometer is an optical spectrometer which uses a dispersive prism as its dispersive element. The prism refracts light into its different colors (wavelengths). The dispersion occurs because the angle of refraction is dependent on the refractive index of the prism's material, which in turn is slightly dependent on the wavelength of light that is traveling through it.
Littrow expansion and its counterpart Littrow compression are optical effects associated with slitless imaging spectrographs. These effects are named after austrian physicist Otto von Littrow.
Otto von Littrow was an Austrian astronomer and physicist. He is known for his contributions in spectrometer instrumentation.
References
- ↑ "Littrow prism". photonics.com. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
- ↑ "Littrow Prisms". standaphotonics.com. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
- ↑ Kerschbaum, F.; Müller, I. (June 2009). "Otto von Littrow and his spectrograph". Astronomische Nachrichten. 330 (6): 574–577. Bibcode:2009AN....330..574K. doi:10.1002/asna.200911219.
- ↑ "Littrow Prisms". photonicsonline.com. Retrieved 2023-08-14.