beam splitter
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of beam splitter
First recorded in 1930–35
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They can be made to do so with a beam splitter, a half-silvered mirror set at an angle that will, with equal probability, transmit a photon or deflect it by 90°.
From Science Magazine • May 6, 2024
The first splits a laser beam in two by directing it through a beam splitter to both ends of the scale, where they are reflected by attached mirrors.
From Scientific American • Apr. 29, 2023
Because of that key difference, as the beam splitter itself expands and contracts, the light detector would pick up a signal.
From Science Magazine • Dec. 15, 2021
Wheeler realized that experimenters could even wait to remove the second beam splitter until after the photon had passed the first beam splitter.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 27, 2017
Physicists using an interferometer, an experimental device that includes the beam splitter, toggled between combining the paths and leaving them separate.
From Scientific American • Nov. 6, 2012
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
