- CW
- Continuous Wave; for lasers this means operation with DC current,
generating uninterrupted emission.
- DFB
- Distributed Feed-Back; describing a laser with an etched grating close to its
active zone, which acts as a filter, reducing overall gain for all but the
wavelengths defined by the grating period. This technique allows to produce
single-mode lasers also for pulsed mode operation.
- FP
- Fabry-P
rot; describing a laser whose emission spectrum is only defined
by the gain of the active zone and the cavity of the cleaved laser chip,
in contrast to a DFB laser.
- FTIR
- Fourier-Transform InfraRed; describing a type of spectrometer
- LN2
- Liquid Nitrogen. Used also to describe temperature ranges reachable in
LN2-cooled systems with Dewars (approximatively 80... 130K).
- MTBF
- Mean Time Between Failure. See Lifetime section 2.1.3, p.9).
- QCL
- Quantum Cascade Laser.
- RT
- Room Temperature. In a more general way meaning temperatures in the range of
-30...+50C, in contrast to cryogenic temperatures.
- TE
- Thermo-Electrical: TE coolers use Peltier elements as semiconductor heat pump.
