The diffraction characteristics of a volume grating (VG) illuminated by a three-dimensional (3-D) converging-diverging Gaussian beam at conical incidence are investigated by applying 3-D finite-beam (FB) rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) based on the conventional 3-D RCWA in conjunction with two-dimensional plane-wave decomposition. The Gaussian beam is assumed to have an arbitrary incidenc...

We present an ab initio account of the paraxial complex geometrical optics (CGO) in application to scalar Gaussian beam propagation and diffraction in a 3D smoothly inhomogeneous medium. The paraxial CGO deals with quadratic expansion of the complex eikonal and reduces the wave problem to the solution of ordinary differential equations of the Riccati type. This substantially simplifies the desc...

We study both theoretically and experimentally the transmission of coherent light by a drop pattern (dew). The theory is based on the Kirchhoff scalar approach to diffraction. The polarization of the diffracted wave in the zero diffraction order is analyzed separately. The intensity in the zero diffraction order in the far zone is an oscillatory function of the drop size. These oscillations are...

Recently, a novel holographic diffraction grating made of polymer slices alternated to homogeneous films of nematic liquid crystal (POLICRYPS) was realized. We study the optical performance of the POLICRYPS gratings by both numerical simulations and experiments. Characterization of the grating at normal and conical reading mount are performed. The diffraction efficiency depends strongly on the ...

In this experiment you will become familiar with diffraction patterns created when a beam of light scatters from objects placed in its path. Such experiments were important historically as they were crucial in establishing the wave nature of light in face of competing theories that described light in terms of geometrical rays of discrete objects. Only a wave theory can give a quantitative expla...

Coherent X-ray diffraction is a useful technique for understanding the structure of compact objects including those which can be represented as phase objects. X-rays are highly penetrating and have wavelengths very close to atomic spacing. In this work, gold nanocrystals (on a reflecting substrate) were imaged at the Advanced Photon Source and found to produce a novel double diffraction pattern...

We study the diffraction of Gaussian pulses and beams within the framework of boundary diffraction wave theory. For the first time the boundary diffraction wave theory is applied to pulsed Gaussian beams, and it is shown that the diffracted field of a pulsed Gaussian beam on a circularly symmetric aperture can be evaluated by a single 1D integration along the diffracting aperture at every point...

While ray optics is a valid model for many multimode optical systems, it cannot capture diffraction and interference phenomena which may be required, for example, in calculating speckle propagation in multimode fiber. Wave optics includes the effect of interference and diffraction, but it is usually much more costly computationally. We show how to bridge the gap between ray and wave optics by u...

This paper deals with the scattering of a TM plane wave from a perfectly conductive sinusoidal surface with finite extent. For comparison, however, we briefly discuss the diffraction by the sinusoidal surface with infinite extent, where we use the concept of the total diffraction cross section per unit surface introduced previously. To solve a case where the sinusoidal corrugation width is much...

Phase-coherent matter-wave amplification was demonstrated using Bose- Einstein-condensed rubidium-87 atoms. A small seed matter wave was created with coherent optical Bragg diffraction. Amplification of this seed matter wave was achieved by using the initial condensate as a gain medium through the superradiance effect. The coherence properties of the amplified matter wave, studied with a matter...