saturation

(săch'ə-rā'shən)

1. 1. The act or process of saturating.
   2. The condition of being saturated.
   3. The condition of being full to or beyond satisfaction; satiety.
2. Physics. A state of a ferromagnetic substance in which an increase in applied magnetic field strength does not produce an increase in magnetization.
3. Chemistry. The state of a compound or solution that is fully saturated.
4. Meteorology. A condition in which air at a specific temperature contains all the water vapor it can hold; 100 percent relative humidity.
5. Vividness of hue; degree of difference from a gray of the same lightness or brightness. Also called intensity.
6. Intensive shelling or bombing of a military target to achieve total destruction.
7. The flooding of a market with all of a commodity that consumers can purchase.

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The condition in which, after a sufficient increase in a causal force, further increase in the force produces no additional increase in the resultant effect. Many natural phenomena display saturation. For example, after a magnetizing force becomes sufficiently strong, further increase in the force produces no additional magnetization in a magnetic circuit; all the magnetic domains have been aligned, and the magnetic material is saturated. See also Magnetic materials.

After a sponge has absorbed all the liquid it can hold, it is saturated. In thermionic vacuum tubes thermal saturation is reached when further increase in cathode temperature produces no (or negligible) increase in cathode current; anode saturation is reached when further increase in plate voltage produces substantially no increase in anode current. See also Distortion (electronic circuits); Saturation current; Vacuum tube.

In colorimetry the purer a color is, the higher its saturation. Radiation from a color of low saturation contains frequencies throughout much of the visible spectrum. See also Colorimetry.

(1) On magnetic media, a condition in which the magnetizable particles are completely aligned and a more powerful writing signal will not improve the reading back.

(2) In a bipolar transistor, a condition in which the current on the gate (the trigger) is equal to or greater than what is necessary to close the switch.

(3) In a diode, a condition in which the diode is fully conducting.

(4) In a color, the amount of pure pigment it contains. For example, a fully saturated red would be pure red. The less saturated, the more pastel the appearance. See HSB, HSL, chroma, luminance and hue.

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Media: strategy for achieving maximum impact by increasing advertising coverage and frequency above standard levels. For instance, a retailer would schedule more advertisements during a sale.

Printing: degree to which a color is chromatically pure and free of dilution from white, black, or gray. The less dilution, the more intense the color appears. See also chroma; hue.

There is a constant exchange of water molecules between liquid water, or ice, and the air, as evaporation and condensation take place. Saturation vapour pressure, (es) depicts a balance in the air between condensation and evaporation. es is greater in water droplets than in sheet water, and lower in impure water than in pure. See Raoult's Law. Where es in an air parcel is greater than e, the ambient vapour pressure, there will be net evaporation; where e is greater than es, there will be net condensation.

1. The condition under which air at a given temperature and pressure holds the maximum amount of water vapor without causing precipitation.
2. The degree of purity of a color. A color is said to be saturated when it contains no white.

Condition in which a further increase in one variable produces no further increase in the resultant effect. In a bipolar junction transistor, the condition when the emitter to collector voltage is less than the emitter to base voltage. This condition puts forward bias on the base to collector junction.

1. (of a chemical compound) the point at which all the valence bonds of the component atoms are satisfied, especially the state of an organic compound that contains only single carbon-carbon bonds.
2. (of a solution) the state in which it has the greatest concentration of the solute that can remain in stable equilibrium with undissolved solute at a given temperature and pressure.
3. (of a gas) the state in which there is the greatest concentration of the vapour associated with a liquid or solid that can remain in stable equilibrium with unvaporized liquid or solid, respectively, at a given temperature and pressure.
4. (of an active site of an enzyme or transporter) the point at which the site is fully occupied with ligand. Saturable enzyme or receptor systems exhibit hyperboliform or sigmoid curves of activity versus concentration (see saturation kinetics).
5. the act or process of bringing to or towards saturation; especially the addition of hydrogen to triple and double bonds.

The state of being saturated, or the act of saturating.

• s. kinetics — point of high initial concentration of substrate after which the rate of reaction is independent of further increases in initial substrate concentration, and the enzyme is saturated with substrate.

1. a condition in which a solution contains as much solute as can remain dissolved. 2. a measure of the degree to which oxygen is bound to hemoglobin, expressed as a percentage of the possible limit. 3. a chemical compound in which all the valency bonds have been filled.

• Optics - saturation: degree of purity of a color, measured by absence of dilution by white
• Painting Tools and Techniques - saturation: degree of purity of a color; intensity of hue

Look up saturated, saturation, unsaturated, or unsaturation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Contents 1 Mathematics 2 Telecommunications 3 Science 3.1 Chemistry 3.2 Physics 3.3 Biology 3.4 Other sciences 4 Other

Saturation or saturated may refer to:

Mathematics

• Saturated model, a concept in mathematical logic
• Saturation arithmetic, in arithmetic, a version of arithmetic in which all operations are limited to fixed range
• Saturation (graph theory), a categorization of vertices in graph theory
• Saturated measure, if every locally measurable set is also measurable

Telecommunications

Saturation (telecommunications) is a neither a disambiguation page nor an acceptable Wikipedia article, but until it can be converted to a hard redirect to this section, it may have some marginal value to users of this page.

• 100% modulation of a signal

Science

Chemistry

Saturation (chemistry) is a neither a disambiguation page nor an acceptable Wikipedia article, but until it can be converted to a hard redirect to this section, it may have some marginal value to users of this page.

In physical chemistry and thermodynamics:

• Saturated solution
• Surface saturation or saturated surface

In general chemistry:

• Saturated organic compounds, instances of saturated and unsaturated compounds
• Non-susceptibility of an organometallic compound to oxidative addition
• 100% saturation of protein binding sites

Physics

• Thermodynamic state at lower temperature bound of superheated steam
• Saturation (magnetic), the state when a magnetic material is fully magnetized
• Saturation current, limit of flowing current through a device
• Saturated fluid or saturated vapor, contains as much thermal energy as it can without boiling or condensing
• Saturation, a mode of operation in a bipolar junction transistor
• Saturation, a mode of operation in a field-effect transistor
• Saturation velocity, the maximum velocity a charge carrier in a semiconductor attains in the presence of very high electric fields
• Saturated absorption, a set-up that enables the precise determination of the transition frequency of an atom between its ground state and an optically excited state

Biology

• Saturation (genetic), in mutation studies, the observed number of mutations relative to the maximum amount possible (usually undefined)
• Oxygen saturation, a clinical measure of the amount of oxygen in a patient's blood
• Saturated fat, fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acid radicals
• Saturation pollination, a pollination technique
• Saturated mutagenesis, a form of site-directed mutagenesis

Other sciences

• Dew point, which is a temperature that occurs when atmospheric humidity reaches 100% and the air is saturated with moisture
• In the earth sciences, saturation generally refers to the water content in the soil, where the unsaturated zone is above the water table and the saturated zone is below

In color theory:

• Saturation (color theory), hue
• Saturation intent, a rendering intent in color management

Other

• Market saturation
• Saturation (album), a 1993 album by the alternative rock band Urge Overkill

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