Diffraction gratings are curious things. Score a series of equally spaced tiny lines in a surface, and it will cause reflected or transmitted light to bend and separate into its component wavelengths.

One of the coolest things about physics is that the same basic concept can pop up in several seemingly unrelated things: say, a CD, the seed shrimp’s antennae, certain fossils in the Burgess shale, ...

The spectrum of laser technologies available to hackers has gradually widened from basic gas lasers through CO2 tubes, diode lasers, and now fiber lasers. One of the newer entries is the MOPA laser, ...

What happens when a wave passes through some opening? It diffracts - or you like, you could say "bends". If the size of the opening is comparable to the wavelength of the wave, the bending can be ...

A material that is capable of the “reverse diffraction” of light and that is inspired by butterfly wings has been made by researchers in the US. The structure combines features of the butterfly’s ...

When ordering a plane grating, please use the following example format: P 1200 W x H x Thk 700-900 nm (TM+TE)/2 (-1) constant deviation angle 10° Groove densities: Spectrogon manufactures 600 ...

Waves of all types inevitably spread out while propagating, owing to diffraction. Under certain strict conditions, however, waves can be made to propagate without diffraction. Although this has been ...

Editor's Note: To view a PDF version of the article, Click Here. The commercial introduction of wafer-based, nanofabrication techniques now makes it possible to create a new class of optical ...

Modern Canadian plastic money (specifically the Frontiers series) has a diffractive element in it as a security feature. When a laser beam shines through the maple leaf on the bill, it produces a ...

Spectrographs are important tools for studying many biological and chemical processes and substances, from pigments to plant growth and nucleic acids to pharmaceuticals, providing information about ...

As stated in the article titled ‘An Introduction to a Spectrometer: The Slit’, a spectrometer is an imaging system that maps a plurality of monochromatic images of the entrance slit onto the detector ...