Holographic transmission gratings with a spatial frequency of 2658 lines/mm and reflection gratings with a spatial frequency of 4553 lines/mm were stored in a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/acrylamide (AA) based photopolymer. This material can reach diffraction efficiencies close to 100% for spatial frequencies about 1000 lines/mm. However, for higher spatial frequencies, the diffraction efficiency de...

How a diffractive bifocal contact lens works is not intuitively obvious. This is because the diffractive bifocal operates by an unusual blend of refraction and interference. The present article seeks to clarify how it achieves its two focal powers. Most of this article, however, is devoted to the conceptually simpler case of diffraction gratings in order to develop an intuition for how a double...

Large area, high resolving power spectroscopy in the soft x-ray band can only be achieved with a state-of-the-art diffraction grating spectrometer, comprised of large collecting-area focusing optics with a narrow point spread function, large-area high-resolving power diffraction gratings, and small pixel, order sorting x-ray detectors. Recently developed critical-angle transmission (CAT) gratin...

Diffraction gratings are effective ways of increasing the light absorption of solar cells and the light extraction of light-emitting diodes. In this paper, we show that simplified modal analysis can be used as a conceptual model for understanding the behavior of the diffuse transmittance of lamellar diffraction gratings on infinite substrates. We use simplified modal analysis to predict the opt...

Recently developed Critical-Angle Transmission (CAT) grating technology in combination with x-ray CCD cameras and large collecting-area focusing optics will enable a new generation of soft x-ray spectrometers with unprecedented resolving power and effective area and with at least an order of magnitude improvement in figures-of-merit for emission and absorption line detection. This technology wi...

The diffraction patterns generated by surface relief structures that consisted of two identical crossed, superimposed gratings formed in the As2S3 thin films electron beam recording and subsequent chemical etching were studied. angle between with grating periods equal to 2 μm was varied 2° 90°. Additional a set intersection nodes basic lines considered simulate patterns. circular symmetric stru...

We have investigated the possibility of using transparent stretchable diffraction gratings for spectrometric applications. The gratings were fabricated by replication of a triangular-groove master into a transparent viscoelastic. The sample length, and hence the spatial period, can be reversibly changed by mechanical stretching. When used in a monochromator with two slits, the stretchable grati...

Two holographic diffraction gratings with very similar parameters, designed for maximum performance inTM polarization, are investigated, their diffraction efficiency measured, an electron microscopic picture of their surface observed, and numerical simulation of light diffraction done with the surface roughness taken into account. It is demonstrated numerically that a small-scale roughness impo...