Concepts of Diffraction and Applications

'Concepts of Diffraction and Applications'

Diffraction means bending of light around sharp obstacles. The diffraction pattern produced by an obstacle contains information about the characteristics of the light used and of the deflecting obstacle. Grating an (arrangement formed by Rolling a large number of lines on a small glass plate show that the separation between adjacent lines is of the order of wavelength of light) become popular for diffraction studies.

A grating defects different wavelengths along different directions - a property useful for determination of unknown wavelength and as a wavelength separator or a monochromator. Diffraction of light by gratings motivated in studies of diffraction of X-Rays by crystals that led to the development of X-Ray crystallography, a technique that has been used to map many Complex structures in the last century. Diffraction studies are also useful for measurement of Stellar Data and Elastic properties of liquids. One of the interesting outcomes of diffraction studies was a deeper insight into the concept of resolution. provided that resolving power of an instrument can be enhanced by reducing of wavelength of the probing Waves - a clue that give a lot of impetus to the progress in the field of microscopy. It can be said that had diffraction not been discovered and subsequently researched into we would not have known about anything smaller than the wavelength of light!