1. A luminous ring that sometimes can be observed around the sun or the moon. It is caused by diffraction of their light by particles in the earth’s atmosphere; the radius of the ring is inversely proportional to the predominant particle radius.
2. Broad rings appearing in the electron diffraction, neutron diffraction, or X-ray diffraction patterns of materials that are not crystals. For example, the halo associated with neutron diffraction is called a neutron halo. Haloes of this type occur in gases and liquids as well as in noncrystalline solids.
3. The glow in a cathode-ray tube that briefly remains after the beam has passed.