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glossary
- Laser: acronym of : « light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation » ; device emitting spatially and temporally coherent light radiation based on the stimulated emission
- Primary principal plane: plane of the object space of an optical system whose conjugation by the said optical system occurs with a magnification of +1 and whose conjugate plane is called the secondary principal plane
- Secondary principal plane: plane conjugate by an optical system of an object plane ( the primary principal plane ) with a transverse magnification of +1
- Waist: position along the propagation axis where a laser beam has the smallest size
- Elliptical beam: a beam in which « equi-intensity » curves in a plane perpendicular to the propagation axis are elliptical
- M square factor (M2): ratio between the divergence of an embedded gaussian beam and that of the fundamental mode of a laser (gaussian mode) with the same waist size and at the same wavelength
- Wavelength ( of a light wave ): distance between two consecutive identical states of the electric ( or magnetic ) field
- Effective focal length: algebraic distance from the primary/secondary principal plane of an optical system to its front/back focal plane