This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
An optical filter is a device that selectively transmits light of different wavelengths, usually implemented as a glass plane or plastic device in the optical path, which are either dyed in the bulk or have interference coatings. The optical properties of filters are completely described by their frequency response, which specifies how the magnitude and phase of each frequency component of an incoming signal is modified by the filter.
Optical filters selectively transmit light in a particular range of wavelengths, that is, colours, while absorbing the remainder. They can usually pass long wavelengths only (longpass), short wavelengths only (shortpass), or a band of wavelengths, blocking both longer and shorter wavelengths (bandpass). The passband may be narrower or wider; the transition or cutoff between maximal and minimal transmission can be sharp or gradual. There are filters with more complex transmission characteristic, for example with two peaks rather than a single band; these are more usually older designs traditionally used for photography; filters with more regular characteristics are used for scientific and technical work.
Optical filters are commonly used in photography (where some special effect filters are occasionally used as well as absorptive filters), in many optical instruments, and to colour stage lighting. In astronomy optical filters are used to restrict light passed to the spectral band of interest, e.g., to study infrared radiation without visible light which would affect film or sensors and overwhelm the desired infrared. Optical filters are also essential in fluorescence applications such as fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy.
Photographic filters are a particular case of optical filters, and much of the material here applies. Photographic filters do not need the accurately controlled optical properties and precisely defined transmission curves of filters designed for scientific work, and sell in larger quantities at correspondingly lower prices than many laboratory filters. Some photographic effect filters, such as star effect filters, are not relevant to scientific work.
Absorptive filters are usually made from glass to which various inorganic or organic compounds have been added. These compounds absorb some wavelengths of light while transmitting others. The compounds can also be added to plastic (often polycarbonate or acrylic) to produce gel filters, which are lighter and cheaper than glass-based filters.
Alternately, dichroic filters (also called "reflective" or "thin film" or "interference" filters) can be made by coating a glass substrate with a series of optical coatings. Dichroic filters usually reflect the unwanted portion of the light and transmit the remainder.
Dichroic filters use the principle of interference. Their layers form a sequential series of reflective cavities that resonate with the desired wavelengths. Other wavelengths destructively cancel or reflect as the peaks and troughs of the waves overlap.
Dichroic filters are particularly suited for precise scientific work, since their exact colour range can be controlled by the thickness and sequence of the coatings. They are usually much more expensive and delicate than absorption filters.
The basic scientific instrument of this type is a Fabry–Pérot interferometer. It uses two mirrors to establish a resonating cavity. It passes wavelengths that are a multiple of the cavity's resonance frequency.
Etalons are another variation: transparent cubes or fibers whose polished ends form mirrors tuned to resonate with specific wavelengths. These are often used to separate channels in telecommunications networks that use wavelength division multiplexing on long-haul optic fibers.
Monochromatic filters only allow a narrow range of wavelengths (essentially a single colour) to pass.
The term "infrared filter" can be ambiguous, as it may be applied to filters to pass infrared (blocking other wavelengths) or to block infrared (only).
Infrared-passing filters are used to block visible light but pass infrared; they are used, for example, in infrared photography.
Infrared cut-off filters are designed to block or reflect infrared wavelengths but pass visible light. Mid-infrared filters are often used as heat-absorbing filters in devices with bright incandescent light bulbs (such as slide and overhead projectors) to prevent unwanted heating due to infrared radiation. There are also filters which are used in solid state video cameras to block IR due to the high sensitivity of many camera sensors to unwanted near-infrared light.
Ultraviolet (UV) filters block ultraviolet radiation, but let visible light through. Because photographic film and digital sensors are sensitive to ultraviolet (which is abundant in skylight) but the human eye is not, such light would, if not filtered out, make photographs look different from the scene visible to people, for example making images of distant mountains appear unnaturally hazy. An ultraviolet-blocking filter renders images closer to the visual appearance of the scene.
As with infrared filters there is a potential ambiguity between UV-blocking and UV-passing filters; the latter are much less common, and more usually known explicitly as UV pass filters and UV bandpass filters.
Neutral density (ND) filters have a constant attenuation across the range of visible wavelengths, and are used to reduce the intensity of light by reflecting or absorbing a portion of it. They are specified by the optical density (OD) of the filter, which is the negative of the common logarithm of the transmission coefficient. They are useful for making photographic exposures longer. A practical example is making a waterfall look blurry when it is photographed in bright light. Alternatively, the photographer might want to use a larger aperture (so as to limit the depth of field); adding an ND filter permits this. ND filters can be reflective (in which case they look like partially reflective mirrors) or absorptive (appearing grey or black).
A longpass (LP) Filter is an optical interference or coloured glass filter that attenuates shorter wavelengths and transmits (passes) longer wavelengths over the active range of the target spectrum (ultraviolet, visible, or infrared). Longpass filters, which can have a very sharp slope (referred to as edge filters), are described by the cut-on wavelength at 50 percent of peak transmission. In fluorescence microscopy, longpass filters are frequently utilized in dichroic mirrors and barrier (emission) filters. Use of the older term 'low pass' to describe longpass filters has become uncommon; filters are usually described in terms of wavelength rather than frequency, and a "low pass filter", without qualification, would be understood to be an electronic filter.
Bandpass filters only transmit a certain wavelength band, and block others. The width of such a filter is expressed in the wavelength range it lets through and can be anything from much less than an Ångström to a few hundred nanometers. Such a filter can be made by combining an LP- and an SP filter.
Examples of bandpass filters are the Lyot filter and the Fabry-Pérot interferometer. Both of these filters can also be made tunable, such that the central wavelength can be chosen by the user. Bandpass filters are often used in astronomy when one wants to observe a certain process with specific associated spectral lines. The Dutch Open Telescope and Swedish Solar Telescope are examples where Lyot and Fabry-Pérot filters are being used.
A shortpass (SP) Filter is an optical interference or coloured glass filter that attenuates longer wavelengths and transmits (passes) shorter wavelengths over the active range of the target spectrum (usually the ultraviolet and visible region). In fluorescence microscopy, shortpass filters are frequently employed in dichromatic mirrors and excitation filters.
Guided-mode resonance filters
A relatively new class of filters introduced around 1990. These filters are normally filters in reflection, that is they are notch filters in transmission. They consist in their most basic form of a substrate waveguide and a subwavelength grating or 2D hole array. Such filters are normally transparent, but when a leaky guided mode of the waveguide is excited they become highly reflective (a record of over 99% experimentally) for a particular polarization, angular orientations, and wavelength range. The parameters of the filters are designed by proper choice of the grating parameters. The advantage of such filters are the few layers needed for ultra-narrow bandwidth filters (in contrast to dichroic filters), and the potential decoupling between spectral bandwidth and angular tolerance when more than 1 mode is excited.
Metal mesh filters
Filters for sub-millimeter and near infrared wavelengths in astronomy are metal mesh grids that are stacked together to form LP, BP, and SP filters for these wavelengths.
Another kind of optical filter is a polarizer or polarization filter, which blocks or transmits light according to its polarization. They are often made of materials such as Polaroid and are used for sunglasses and photography. Reflections, especially from water and wet road surfaces, are partially polarized, and polarized sunglasses will block some of this reflected light, allowing an angler to better view below the surface of the water and better vision for a driver. Light from a clear blue sky is also polarized, and adjustable filters are used in colour photography to darken the appearance of the sky without introducing colours to other objects, and in both colour and black-and-white photography to control specular reflections from objects and water. Much older than g.m.r.f (just above) these first (and some still) use fine mesh integrated in the lens.
Polarized filters are also used to view certain types of stereograms, so that each eye will see a distinct image from a single source.
An arc source puts out visible light that may be harmful to human eyes. Therefore, optical filters on welding helmets must meet ANSI Z87:1 (a safety glasses specification) in order to protect human vision.
Some examples of filters that would provide this kind of filtering would be earth elements embedded or coated on glass, but practically speaking it is not possible to do perfect filtering. A perfect filter would remove particular waves and leave plenty of light so a worker can see what he/she is working on.
A wedge filter is an optical filter so constructed that its thickness varies continuously or in steps in the shape of a wedge. The filter is used to modify the intensity distribution in a radiation beam. It is also known as linearly variable filter (LVF). It is used in various optical sensors where wavelength separation is required e.g. in hyperspectral sensors. 
- Anti-aliasing filter
- Atomic line filter
- Dichroic prism
- Filter (photography)
- Filter (signal processing)
- Filter fluorometer
- Lyot filter
- Warm filter
- Transmission curves of many filters for monochrome photography, Schneider, p.1 Optical Filter Design and Analysis: A Signal Processing Approach, Christi K. Madsen, Jian H. Zhao, Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBNs: 0-471-18373-3 (Hardback); 0-471-21375-6 (Electronic)
- Transmission curves of many filters for monochrome photography, Schneider. See Redhancer 491 for a very complex curve with many peaks
- Datasheets on UV pass and bandpass filters
- Rutten, Rob. "DOT tomography". Dutch Open Telescope website. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
- Löfdahl, Mats. "SST CRISP images". SST website. Retrieved 24 May 2011.