DIFFRACTION: is the bending of waves around obstacles or corners.

All waves do this, including light

waves, sound waves and water waves. (Even subatomic particles like neutrons and electrons, which
quantum mechanics says also behave like waves, experience diffraction.) It's typically seen when a wave
passes through an aperture.

The amount of bending depends on the relative size of the wavelength to the size of the aperture; the
closer the size of the aperture is relative to the wavelength, the more bending will occur.

When light waves are diffracted around an opening or obstacle, it can cause the light to interfere with
itself. This creates a diffraction pattern.

It is the bending of light around the corner of an obstacle. Reflected light produces fridges of light, dark
or colored bands. At times diffraction of sunlight in clouds produces a multitude of colors. Example of
diffraction in nature is diamond rays in the solar eclipse.

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF DIFFRACTION this is Fresnel diffraction and Fraunhofer diffraction. Fresnel
diffraction can be observed if the source of light and the screen at which the diffraction pattern is
formed are kept at a finite distance from the diffracting obstacle. In this situation, the wavefronts falling
on the obstacle are not planes. Similarly, the wavefronts leaving the obstacle are not plane. Fraunhofer
diffraction can be observed if the source of light and screen at which the diffraction pattern is formed is
placed at an infinite distance from the diffracting obstacle. This can be done by using two converging
lenses. One lens is placed between the source of light and the obstacle while the other lens is placed
between the obstacle and screen. The lens between the source and obstacle makes the rays parallel to
each other while the lens between the obstacle and screen focuses the parallel rays at a point on the
screen.

EXAMPLE: Sound Waves and Water Waves

While placing obstacles between a person and a source of sound can reduce the intensity of sound the
person hears, the person can still hear it. This is because sound is a wave, and therefore diffracts, or
bends, around corners and obstacles.

If Fred is in one room, and Dianne in another, when Dianne shouts something to Fred he will hear it as if
she were shouting from the doorway, regardless of where she is in the other room. That's because the
doorway acts as a secondary source of the sound waves. Likewise, if a member of the audience at an
orchestra performance sits behind a pillar, they can still hear the orchestra just fine; the sound has a
long enough wavelength to bend around the pillar (assuming it's of a reasonable size).

Ocean waves also diffract around features like jetties, or the corners of coves. Small surface waves will
also bend around obstacles like boats, and turn into circular wave fronts when passing through a small
opening.

DIFFRACTION IN THE REAL WORLD CDs represent an example of a diffraction grating that is not made
from apertures. The information on CDs is stored by a series of tiny, reflective pits in the CD surface. The
diffraction pattern can be seen by using a CD to reflect light onto a white wall.

X-ray diffraction, or x-ray crystallography, is an imaging process. Crystals have a very regular, periodic
structure that has units about the same length as the wavelength of x-rays. In x-ray crystallography, x-
rays are emitted at a crystallized sample, and the resultant diffraction pattern is studied. The regular
structure of the crystal allows the diffraction pattern to be interpreted, giving insights about the crystal's
geometry.

X-ray crystallography has been used to great success determining the molecular structures of biological
compounds.