Efficacy

Efficacy is a quantity often used to describe how efficiently a light fixture (or even an LED) is producing light.

Efficiency (Optical)

At Carclo Optics the optical effciency is determined as the total luminous flux collected by a hemisphere placed over the optical assembly divided by the total lumen output of the LED source(s).

Far Field

This is a notional measure of the distance from a light source.  It occurs when the observation plane is much further from the source than 10x the largest transverse dimension within the source.

Field-Angle

A measure of the width of a distribution defined as the separation of the data points on either side of the peak which have values equal to 10% of the maximum.

Foot-Candle

A measure of illumination used to describe how much light is falling within a given area. 1 Foot-Candle = one lumen per square foot

Freeform Optic

these allow a designer to replace the outputs from a mixture of different optic types and merge these into one single-optic to give unique, non-symmetrical illumination patterns, for example Street

Fresnel Lens

A thin optical lens consisting of concentric rings of segmental lenses and having a short focal length. These are typically designed for visible or near infra-red wavelengths.

Full Width at Half Max (FWHM) °

The full angular width of a beam at 50% of the peak value.

Full Width at Tenth Max (FWTM) °

The full angular width of a beam at 10% of the peak value.

FWHM (Full Width Half Maximum)

A measure of the width of a distribution defined as the separation of the data points on either side of the peak which have values equal to 50% of the maximum.

Human Centric Lighting

Human Centric Lighting (HCL) is a human-centered lighting concept for interiors that takes into account both the visual and the emotional and non-visual effects of light.

IES

The IES file is a photometric file typically used to describe the light distribution from any optic, lighting fixture or source. Certain optical simulation packages (e.g.