Glossary: Optics; Laptop & Laptop LCD Screen Industry Definitions
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ScreenTek is proud to provide you this glossary of common terms in the laptop LCD screen industry, and in the laptop notebook industry. Feel free to become more familiar with the terms we use throughout our site. If you notice any glaring omissions, we'd be glad to hear about those. Drop us a line at sales@screentekinc.com.
Angle of incidence
The angle at which a ray of light strikes the surface of an object. A ray of light located directly in front of a surface has an angle of incidence of 0 degrees. In addition, the angle of incidence always equals the angle of reflection.
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Angle of reflection
The angle at which a ray of light is reflected from the surface of an object. A ray of light reflected directly back to the light emitting source has an angle of reflection of 0 degrees. In addition, the angle of incidence always equals the angle of reflection.
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Birefringence
Birefringence is also known as double refraction. When two rays of light are split through anisotropic material like calcite or quartz, and are refracted in two different directions
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Color chromaticity (CIE)
The aspect of color that includes consideration of its dominant wavelength and purity.
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Color saturation
Refers to the intensity of a color or is a measurement of its purity.
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Color temperature
A simplified way to characterize the spectral properties of a light source. Lower color temperature indicated warmer light (red/yellow), while high color temperature indicated a colder (blue) light.
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 Diffuse reflection
A reflection from a rough or matte surface which creates a beam of scattered light, with no directional dependence. In the image at right, the green lines represent the image and the light blue lines represent the reflected image.
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Glare
A beam or ray of light being emitted from a light source. Glare is commonly, yet incorrectly, used in place of technically a phenomenon related to the surrounding environment of a display, and as such, is beyond the ability of the display engineer to directly control. As used commonly by display users, however, glare refers to a reflection from the display which is highly distracting. Typically a user will call an obvious reflection of a white shirt in a display as a glare which reduces his ability to perform his tasks. This is actually more correctly a specular reflection (see Reflections on Reflections). Treatments of the surface to minimize this are referred to as antiglare or antireflection treatments. Antireflection treatments reduce the difference in refractive index between air and the display in a way which is the optical equivalent to impedance matching in electronics. Antiglare treatments, on the other hand, leave the impedance mismatch present, but cause the reflections to be scattered into all directions.
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Illuminance
The total luminous flux incident per unit area. It refers to the amount of incident light.
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Illuminance meter
Measures the brightness of illuminated objects.
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is a way to increase the apparent resolution of a computer's liquid crystal display (LCD) or Organic
Electro-optic properties of liquid crystal phase gratings (LCPGs), regarding groove depth, temperature and a cell gap, have been studied. The off response times are proportional to the square of the groove depth. The transmitted light colour depends on temperature. When there is a gap between the grating and the opposite substrate, their transmittance-voltage curve has a maximum and a minimum. The authors have also simulated the LCPG properties using a homogeneous alignment model. The simulating results coincide with experimental results; therefore the simulation method is considered useful to predict LCPG properties.
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 Lambertian distribution
A sum of reflections in all directions. When a surface is composed of numerous surfaces, such as a polarizer, the overall observed reflection becomes the sum of the individual reflection. This is characterized by a distribution known as the Lambertian distribution. In the image at right, the green lines represent the incoming light and the blue lines the reflected light. Taken in aggregate, the blue lines make up the lambertian distribution of light reflected from the surface.
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Luminance
The quality of being luminous, either emitting or reflecting light.
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Luminance meter
Instrument for measuring the amount of light falling on or being reflected by a subject.
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Nit
Unit of luminance. 1 nit = 1 candela / square meter; or, 1 nit = 1 cd/m2. It's a measure of brightness for computer monitors, flat panel displays, and LCD screens. Nit is not an SI unit of measure; the SI unit for luminance is candelas per square meter.
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Parallel transmittance %
The degree to which beams of light are reflected from an object pass through a material within a predetermined small range of angles
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Reflection
An occurrence of reflecting; the return of light or sound waves from a surface.
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Reflective
A viewing mode which uses ambient or other front lighting to provide the illumination for the display.
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Refraction
The change in direction of a wave passing from one medium to another caused by its change in speed.
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Refraction index
The ratio of the speed of radiation (as light) in one medium (as a vacuum) to that in another medium.
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 Specular reflection
A well defined beam resulting from reflection off of a smooth surface. In the image at right, the green lines represent the image and the light blue lines represent the reflected image.
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Support color
The amount of color that can be displayed
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TN Cell
contains a nematic liquid crystal having positive dielectric anisotropy and a twist angle of essentially 90°, between two substrates provided with electrode and alignment layers, where the product of the separation between the substrate plates d and the optical anisotropy of the liquid crystal is between 0.15 and 0.70 ?m, characterised in that the liquid crystal contains a doping component in order to improve the grey shade capacity.
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TN LCD (twisted Nematic)
device including liquid crystal (LC) molecules having a twisted angle of around 90 degrees.
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Transmittance
The fraction of incident light at a specified wavelength that passes through a sample.
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Trilayer
method which permits use of high-resolution optics with a relatively small depth of focus for patterning a substrate.
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Vertical Stripe Color Filter Arrangement
is a way to increase the apparent resolution of a computer's liquid crystal display (LCD) or Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display by rendering pixels to take into account the screen type's physical properties. It takes advantage of the fact that each pixel on a color LCD is actually composed of individual red, green, and blue subpixel stripes to anti-alias text with greater detail or to increase the resolution of all image types on layouts which are specifically designed to be compatible with subpixel rendering.
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Wavelength
The distance between one peak of a wave and another, both in the same wave pattern.
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Glossary index
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