Description of diffraction grating behavior in direction cosine space

    Authors

    J. E. Harvey;C. L. Vernold

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Appl. Optics

    Keywords

    Optics

    Abstract

    It is well known that the angular separation of non-paraxial diffracted orders from a linear grating varies drastically with incident angle. Furthermore, for oblique incident angles (conical diffraction), it is rather cumbersome both analytically and graphically to describe the number and angular position of the various propagating orders. One can readily demonstrate that wide-angle diffraction phenomena (including conical diffraction from gratings) are shift-invariant with respect to incident angle in direction cosine space. Only when the grating equation is expressed in terms of the direction cosines of the propagation vectors of the incident beam and the diffracted orders can we apply the Fourier techniques resulting from linear systems theory. This formulation has proven extremely useful fur small-angle diffraction phenomena and in modern, image formation theory. New insight and an intuitive understanding of diffraction grating behavior results from a simple direction cosine diagram.

    Journal Title

    Applied Optics

    Volume

    37

    Issue/Number

    34

    Publication Date

    1-1-1998

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    8158

    Last Page

    8160

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000077168600043

    ISSN

    0003-6935

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