Colophon

How this site is built, hosted, and measured.

Stack

Photonica is a statically generated Next.js site. Every article, glossary entry, and material page is an MDX file in a Git repository; there is no CMS and no database. Math is rendered at build time with KaTeX, interactive plots use Recharts, and search is a client-side Pagefind index, so nothing you type in the search box leaves your browser. Hosting is on Vercel.

The calculators run entirely in your browser too. Your data (LIV sweeps, threshold currents, whatever you paste in) is never uploaded anywhere.

Type and design

Text is set in Trebuchet MS, a font already installed on most computers, so pages load without downloading any fonts and the figures use the same face as the text around them. The look is a handbook: a white page on a teal-grey ground, a teal header with tabs for each section, and solid bars over each section heading. Links are blue-teal and the one-line definitions sit in a pale yellow box.

No dark patterns

No cookies, no tracking pixels, no popups, no paywall, no “subscribe before you leave.” Analytics are aggregate-only and cookieless (details in the privacy policy). The site is meant to feel like a reference shelf, not a funnel.

Corrections

Errors get fixed in the text itself, and each fix moves the page's updated date forward. Report one at hello@photonica.io. Corrections are credited on request.