In complex analysis, a branch of mathematics, a holomorphic function is said to be of exponential type C if its growth is bounded by the exponential function eC|z| for some real-valued constant C as |z| → ∞. When a function is bounded in this way, it is then possible to express it as certain kinds of convergent summations over a series of other complex functions, as well as understanding when it is possible to apply techniques such as Borel summation, or, for example, to apply the Mellin transform, or to perform approximations using the Euler–Maclaurin formula. The general case is handled by Nachbin's theorem, which defines the analogous notion of Ψ-type for a general function Ψ(z) as opposed to ez.
A function f(z) defined on the complex plane is said to be of exponential type if there exist real-valued constants M and τ such that
in the limit of . Here, the complex variable z was written as to emphasize that the limit must hold in all directions θ. Letting τ stand for the infimum of all such τ, one then says that the function f is of exponential type τ.