photonics
Sign in to savethumb|A sea mouse (Aphrodita aculeata), showing colorful spines, an example of Biophotonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in the form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Even though photonics is a commonly used term, there is no widespread agreement on a clear definition of the term or on the difference between photonics and related fields, such as optics.
Article
17 sectionsContents
- History
- Relationship to other fields
- Classical optics
- Modern optics
- Emerging fields
- Applications
- Overview of photonics research
- Light sources
- Transmission media
- Amplifiers
- Detection
- Modulation
- Photonic systems
- Photonic integrated circuits
- Biophotonics
- See also
- References
thumb|A sea mouse (Aphrodita aculeata), showing colorful spines, an example of Biophotonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in the form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Even though photonics is a commonly used term, there is no widespread agreement on a clear definition of the term or on the difference between photonics and related fields, such as optics.
Photonics is closely related to quantum optics, which studies the theory behind photonics' engineering applications. Though covering all light's technical applications over the whole spectrum, most photonic applications are in the range of visible and near-infrared light.