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An emitter was any device that emitted or gave off something. Usually, what was given off was energy or streams of particles.
In Starfleet technology, among the various kinds of emitters often used on starships and stations were:
- Phaser emitters – arrayed in banks along the hull and most often referred to as such, technically the part of the assembly from which the phaser beam started was the emitter on any phaser weapon, be it starship-size or handheld
- Holographic emitters, emitted both the photons and the force fields used to confine them to create the hologram; a special case was The Doctor's mobile emitter, which was able to be fixed to its own projection (as evidenced by The Doctor wearing it)
- Navigational deflector – emitted the navigational shields that protected the ship from space-borne debris (at normal impulse velocities, a fist-sized rock had enough kinetic energy to blow a hole the entire length of the starship, hence the need for deflectors); also could be reconfigured or jury-rigged to emit a vast variety of particle and energy beams and fields. The emitter was the deflector dish and the related assembly where the beams and fields were created.
- Shield emitters – these emitted the particles/energy required to create the shields around the ship. When they were damaged, parts of the ship or its entirety could be left unshielded.