wavefront

British

/ ˈweɪvˌfrʌnt /

noun

physics a surface associated with a propagating wave and passing through all points in the wave that have the same phase. It is usually perpendicular to the direction of propagation

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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"Even with adaptive optics, the photonic lantern was so sensitive to the wavefront fluctuations that I had to develop a new data processing technique to filter out the remaining atmospheric turbulence."

From Science Daily • Oct. 25, 2025

The photonic lantern divides the incoming light into multiple channels based on how the light wavefront is shaped, much like separating the notes of a musical chord.

From Science Daily • Oct. 25, 2025

"We have now developed a special method to deform the wavefront of the light being emitted by the atom," explains Dr. Andrea Alberti.

From Science Daily • Mar. 5, 2024

As the wavefront strikes the mirror, wavelets are first emitted from the left part of the mirror and then the right.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

Figure 27.5 Huygens’s principle applied to a straight wavefront.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023