Diffraction

Diffraction is the interference or bending of waves around the

corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the region of
geometrical shadow of the obstacle/aperture. The diffracting object
or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the
propagating wave. Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi
coined the word diffraction and was the first to record accurate
observations of the phenomenon in 1660.[1][2]

In classical physics, the diffraction phenomenon is described by the

Huygens–Fresnel principle that treats each point in a propagating
wavefront as a collection of individual spherical wavelets.[3] The
characteristic bending pattern is most pronounced when a wave
from a coherent source (such as a laser) encounters a slit/aperture A diffraction pattern of a red laser
that is comparable in size to its wavelength, as shown in the inserted beam projected onto a plate after
image. This is due to the addition, or interference, of different points passing through a small circular
on the wavefront (or, equivalently, each wavelet) that travel by aperture in another plate
paths of different lengths to the registering surface. If there are
multiple, closely spaced openings (e.g., a diffraction grating),
a complex pattern of varying intensity can result.

These effects also occur when a light wave travels through a

medium with a varying refractive index, or when a sound
wave travels through a medium with varying acoustic
impedance – all waves diffract,[4] including gravitational
waves,[5] water waves, and other electromagnetic waves
such as X-rays and radio waves. Furthermore, quantum
mechanics also demonstrates that matter possesses wave-like
properties and, therefore, undergoes diffraction (which is
measurable at subatomic to molecular levels).[6]

The amount of diffraction depends on the size of the gap. Infinitely many points (three shown) along
Diffraction is greatest when the size of the gap is similar to length project phase contributions from
the wavelength of the wave. In this case, when the waves the wavefront, producing a continuously
pass through the gap they become semi-circular. varying intensity on the registering plate.

History
The effects of diffraction of light were first carefully observed and characterized by Francesco Maria
Grimaldi, who also coined the term diffraction, from the Latin diffringere, 'to break into pieces', referring to
light breaking up into different directions. The results of Grimaldi's observations were published
posthumously in 1665.[7][8][9] Isaac Newton studied these effects and attributed them to inflexion of light
rays. James Gregory (1638–1675) observed the diffraction patterns caused by a bird feather, which was
effectively the first diffraction grating to be discovered.[10] Thomas Young performed a celebrated
experiment in 1803 demonstrating interference from two closely spaced slits.[11] Explaining his results by
interference of the waves emanating from the two different slits, he deduced that light must propagate as
waves. Augustin-Jean Fresnel did more definitive studies and
calculations of diffraction, made public in 1816[12] and 1818,[13]
and thereby gave great support to the wave theory of light that had
been advanced by Christiaan Huygens[14] and reinvigorated by
Young, against Newton's particle theory.
Thomas Young's sketch of two-slit
Mechanism diffraction for water waves, which he
presented to the Royal Society in
In classical physics 1803.
diffraction arises because of
the way in which waves
propagate; this is described by the Huygens–Fresnel principle and
the principle of superposition of waves. The propagation of a wave
can be visualized by considering every particle of the transmitted
medium on a wavefront as a point source for a secondary spherical
wave. The wave displacement at any subsequent point is the sum of
Single-slit diffraction in a circular these secondary waves. When waves are added together, their sum
ripple tank is determined by the relative phases as well as the amplitudes of the
individual waves so that the summed amplitude of the waves can
have any value between zero and the sum of the individual
amplitudes. Hence, diffraction patterns usually have a series of maxima and minima.

In the modern quantum mechanical understanding of light propagation through a slit (or slits) every photon
is described by its wavefunction that determines the probability distribution for the photon: the light and
dark bands are the areas where the photons are more or less likely to be detected. The wavefunction is
determined by the physical surroundings such as slit geometry, screen distance and initial conditions when
the photon is created. The wave nature of individual photons (as opposed to wave properties only arising
from the interactions between multitudes of photons) was implied by a low-intensity double-slit experiment
first performed by G. I. Taylor in 1909. The quantum approach has some striking similarities to the
Huygens-Fresnel principle; based on that principle, as light travels through slits and boundaries, secondary
point light sources are created near or along these obstacles, and the resulting diffraction pattern is going to
be the intensity profile based on the collective interference of all these light sources that have different
optical paths. In the quantum formalism, that is similar to considering the limited regions around the slits
and boundaries from which photons are more likely to originate, and calculating the probability distribution
(that is proportional to the resulting intensity of classical formalism).

There are various analytical models which allow the diffracted field to be calculated, including the
Kirchhoff-Fresnel diffraction equation (derived from the wave equation),[15] the Fraunhofer diffraction
approximation of the Kirchhoff equation (applicable to the far field), the Fresnel diffraction approximation
(applicable to the near field) and the Feynman path integral formulation. Most configurations cannot be
solved analytically, but can yield numerical solutions through finite element and boundary element
methods.

It is possible to obtain a qualitative understanding of many diffraction phenomena by considering how the
relative phases of the individual secondary wave sources vary, and, in particular, the conditions in which
the phase difference equals half a cycle in which case waves will cancel one another out.

The simplest descriptions of diffraction are those in which the situation can be reduced to a two-
dimensional problem. For water waves, this is already the case; water waves propagate only on the surface
of the water. For light, we can often neglect one direction if the diffracting object extends in that direction
over a distance far greater than the wavelength. In the case of light shining through small circular holes we
will have to take into account the full three-dimensional nature of the problem.
 Computer- Generation of an Computational Optical diffraction
generated interference pattern model of an pattern ( laser),
intensity pattern from two-slit interference (analogous to X-ray
formed on a diffraction. pattern from crystallography)
screen by two-slit
diffraction from diffraction.
a square
aperture.

Colors seen in a spider

web are partially due to
diffraction, according to
some analyses.[16]

Examples
The effects of diffraction are often seen in everyday life. The most striking examples of diffraction are those
that involve light; for example, the closely spaced tracks on a CD or DVD act as a diffraction grating to
form the familiar rainbow pattern seen when looking at a disc.

Data is written on CDs as pits

Pixels on smart phone screen
and lands; the pits on the surface
acting as diffraction grating
act as diffracting elements

This principle can be extended to engineer a grating with a structure such that it will produce any
diffraction pattern desired; the hologram on a credit card is an example.
Diffraction in the atmosphere by small particles can cause a bright ring to be visible around a bright light
source like the sun or the moon.

A solar glory on steam from hot

springs. A glory is an optical
phenomenon produced by light
backscattered (a combination of
diffraction, reflection and refraction)
towards its source by a cloud of
uniformly sized water droplets.

A shadow of a solid object, using light from a compact source, shows small fringes near its edges.

The bright spot (Arago spot) seen in

the center of the shadow of a
circular obstacle is due to diffraction

Diffraction spikes are diffraction patterns caused due to non-circular aperture in camera or support struts in
telescope; In normal vision, diffraction through eyelashes may produce such spikes.
 View from the end of Millenium
Bridge; Moon rising above the
Southwark Bridge. Street lights are
reflecting in the Thames.

Simulated diffraction spikes in

hexagonal telescope mirrors

The speckle pattern which is observed when laser light falls on an optically rough surface is also a
diffraction phenomenon. When deli meat appears to be iridescent, that is diffraction off the meat fibers.[17]
All these effects are a consequence of the fact that light propagates as a wave.

Diffraction can occur with any kind of wave. Ocean waves diffract around jetties and other obstacles.

Circular waves generated by

diffraction from the narrow entrance
of a flooded coastal quarry

Sound waves can diffract around objects, which is why one can still hear someone calling even when
hiding behind a tree.[18]

Diffraction can also be a concern in some technical applications; it sets a fundamental limit to the resolution
of a camera, telescope, or microscope.

Other examples of diffraction are considered below.

Single-slit diffraction

A long slit of infinitesimal width which is illuminated by light diffracts the light into a series of circular
waves and the wavefront which emerges from the slit is a cylindrical wave of uniform intensity, in
accordance with the Huygens–Fresnel principle.
An illuminated slit that is wider than a wavelength produces
interference effects in the space downstream of the slit. Assuming
that the slit behaves as though it has a large number of point sources
spaced evenly across the width of the slit interference effects can be
calculated. The analysis of this system is simplified if we consider
light of a single wavelength. If the incident light is coherent, these
sources all have the same phase. Light incident at a given point in
the space downstream of the slit is made up of contributions from
each of these point sources and if the relative phases of these
contributions vary by or more, we may expect to find minima
and maxima in the diffracted light. Such phase differences are
caused by differences in the path lengths over which contributing 2D Single-slit diffraction with width
rays reach the point from the slit. changing animation

We can find the angle at which a first minimum is obtained in the

diffracted light by the following reasoning. The light from a source
located at the top edge of the slit interferes destructively with a
source located at the middle of the slit, when the path difference
between them is equal to . Similarly, the source just below the
top of the slit will interfere destructively with the source located just
below the middle of the slit at the same angle. We can continue this
reasoning along the entire height of the slit to conclude that the
condition for destructive interference for the entire slit is the same as
the condition for destructive interference between two narrow slits a
distance apart that is half the width of the slit. The path difference is
Numerical approximation of
approximately so that the minimum intensity occurs at an diffraction pattern from a slit of width
four wavelengths with an incident
angle given by plane wave. The main central beam,
nulls, and phase reversals are
apparent.

where is the width of the slit, is the angle of incidence at

which the minimum intensity occurs, and is the wavelength of the
light.

A similar argument can be used to show that if we imagine the slit

to be divided into four, six, eight parts, etc., minima are obtained at
angles given by
Graph and image of single-slit
diffraction.

where is an integer other than zero.

There is no such simple argument to enable us to find the maxima of the diffraction pattern. The intensity
profile can be calculated using the Fraunhofer diffraction equation as
where is the intensity at a given angle, is the intensity at the central maximum ( ), which is
also a normalization factor of the intensity profile that can be determined by an integration from to

and conservation of energy, and , which is the unnormalized sinc function.

This analysis applies only to the far field (Fraunhofer diffraction), that is, at a distance much larger than the
width of the slit.

From the intensity profile above, if , the intensity will have little dependency on , hence the
wavefront emerging from the slit would resemble a cylindrical wave with azimuthal symmetry; If ,
only would have appreciable intensity, hence the wavefront emerging from the slit would resemble
that of geometrical optics.

When the incident angle of the light onto the slit is non-zero (which causes a change in the path length),
the intensity profile in the Fraunhofer regime (i.e. far field) becomes:

The choice of plus/minus sign depends on the definition of the incident angle .

Diffraction grating

A diffraction grating is an
optical component with a
regular pattern. The form of
the light diffracted by a 2-slit (top) and 5-slit diffraction of red
grating depends on the laser light
Diffraction of a red laser using a
structure of the elements and
diffraction grating.
the number of elements
present, but all gratings have
intensity maxima at angles θm which are given by the grating
equation

A diffraction pattern of a 633 nm

laser through a grid of 150 slits
where is the angle at which the light is incident, is the
separation of grating elements, and is an integer which can be
positive or negative.

The light diffracted by a grating is found by summing the light

diffracted from each of the elements, and is essentially a
convolution of diffraction and interference patterns.
Diffraction grating
The figure shows the light diffracted by 2-element and 5-element gratings where the grating spacings are
the same; it can be seen that the maxima are in the same position, but the detailed structures of the
intensities are different.

Circular aperture

The far-field diffraction of a plane wave incident on a circular

aperture is often referred to as the Airy disk. The variation in
intensity with angle is given by

A computer-generated image of an
where is the radius of the circular aperture, is equal to Airy disk.
and is a Bessel function. The smaller the aperture, the larger the
spot size at a given distance, and the greater the divergence of the
diffracted beams.

General aperture

The wave that emerges from a point source has amplitude at

location that is given by the solution of the frequency domain
wave equation for a point source (the Helmholtz equation),
Computer-generated light diffraction
pattern from a circular aperture of
diameter 0.5 micrometre at a
where is the 3-dimensional delta function. The delta function wavelength of 0.6 micrometre (red-
light) at distances of 0.1 cm – 1 cm
has only radial dependence, so the Laplace operator (a.k.a. scalar
Laplacian) in the spherical coordinate system simplifies to in steps of 0.1 cm. One can see the
image moving from the Fresnel
region into the Fraunhofer region
where the Airy pattern is seen.

(See del in cylindrical and spherical coordinates.) By direct substitution, the solution to this equation can be
readily shown to be the scalar Green's function, which in the spherical coordinate system (and using the
physics time convention ) is

This solution assumes that the delta function source is located at the origin. If the source is located at an
arbitrary source point, denoted by the vector and the field point is located at the point , then we may
represent the scalar Green's function (for arbitrary source location) as
Therefore, if an electric field is incident on the aperture, the field produced by this aperture
distribution is given by the surface integral

where the source point in the aperture is given by the

vector

In the far field, wherein the parallel rays

approximation can be employed, the Green's
function,
On the calculation of Fraunhofer region fields

simplifies to

as can be seen in the adjacent figure.

The expression for the far-zone (Fraunhofer region) field becomes

Now, since

and

the expression for the Fraunhofer region field from a planar aperture now becomes
Letting

and

the Fraunhofer region field of the planar aperture assumes the form of a Fourier transform

In the far-field / Fraunhofer region, this becomes the spatial Fourier transform of the aperture distribution.
Huygens' principle when applied to an aperture simply says that the far-field diffraction pattern is the spatial
Fourier transform of the aperture shape, and this is a direct by-product of using the parallel-rays
approximation, which is identical to doing a plane wave decomposition of the aperture plane fields (see
Fourier optics).

Propagation of a laser beam

The way in which the beam profile of a laser beam changes as it propagates is determined by diffraction.
When the entire emitted beam has a planar, spatially coherent wave front, it approximates Gaussian beam
profile and has the lowest divergence for a given diameter. The smaller the output beam, the quicker it
diverges. It is possible to reduce the divergence of a laser beam by first expanding it with one convex lens,
and then collimating it with a second convex lens whose focal point is coincident with that of the first lens.
The resulting beam has a larger diameter, and hence a lower divergence. Divergence of a laser beam may
be reduced below the diffraction of a Gaussian beam or even reversed to convergence if the refractive
index of the propagation media increases with the light intensity.[19] This may result in a self-focusing
effect.

When the wave front of the emitted beam has perturbations, only the transverse coherence length (where
the wave front perturbation is less than 1/4 of the wavelength) should be considered as a Gaussian beam
diameter when determining the divergence of the laser beam. If the transverse coherence length in the
vertical direction is higher than in horizontal, the laser beam divergence will be lower in the vertical
direction than in the horizontal.

Diffraction-limited imaging

The ability of an imaging system to resolve detail is ultimately limited by diffraction. This is because a
plane wave incident on a circular lens or mirror is diffracted as described above. The light is not focused to
a point but forms an Airy disk having a central spot in the focal plane whose radius (as measured to the first
null) is
where is the wavelength of the light and is the f-number (focal
length divided by aperture diameter ) of the imaging optics;
this is strictly accurate for (paraxial case). In object space,
the corresponding angular resolution is

where is the diameter of the entrance pupil of the imaging lens

(e.g., of a telescope's main mirror).
The Airy disk around each of the
stars from the 2.56 m telescope
Two point sources will each produce an Airy pattern – see the aperture can be seen in this lucky
photo of a binary star. As the point sources move closer together, image of the binary star zeta Boötis.
the patterns will start to overlap, and ultimately they will merge to
form a single pattern, in which case the two point sources cannot
be resolved in the image. The Rayleigh criterion specifies that two point sources are considered "resolved"
if the separation of the two images is at least the radius of the Airy disk, i.e. if the first minimum of one
coincides with the maximum of the other.

Thus, the larger the aperture of the lens compared to the wavelength, the finer the resolution of an imaging
system. This is one reason astronomical telescopes require large objectives, and why microscope objectives
require a large numerical aperture (large aperture diameter compared to working distance) in order to obtain
the highest possible resolution.

Speckle patterns

The speckle pattern seen when using a laser pointer is another diffraction phenomenon. It is a result of the
superposition of many waves with different phases, which are produced when a laser beam illuminates a
rough surface. They add together to give a resultant wave whose amplitude, and therefore intensity, varies
randomly.

Babinet's principle

Babinet's principle is a useful theorem stating that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to
that from a hole of the same size and shape, but with differing intensities. This means that the interference
conditions of a single obstruction would be the same as that of a single slit.

"Knife edge"

The knife-edge effect or knife-edge diffraction is a truncation of a portion of the incident radiation that
strikes a sharp well-defined obstacle, such as a mountain range or the wall of a building. The knife-edge
effect is explained by the Huygens–Fresnel principle, which states that a well-defined obstruction to an
electromagnetic wave acts as a secondary source, and creates a new wavefront. This new wavefront
propagates into the geometric shadow area of the obstacle.

Knife-edge diffraction is an outgrowth of the "half-plane problem", originally solved by Arnold

Sommerfeld using a plane wave spectrum formulation. A generalization of the half-plane problem is the
"wedge problem", solvable as a boundary value problem in cylindrical coordinates. The solution in
cylindrical coordinates was then extended to the optical regime by Joseph B. Keller, who introduced the
notion of diffraction coefficients through his geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD). Pathak and
Kouyoumjian extended the (singular) Keller coefficients via the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD).

Diffraction on a sharp metallic edge Diffraction on a soft aperture, with a

gradient of conductivity over the image
width

Patterns
Several qualitative observations can be made of diffraction in
general:

The angular spacing of the features in the diffraction

pattern is inversely proportional to the dimensions of the
object causing the diffraction. In other words: The smaller
the diffracting object, the 'wider' the resulting diffraction
pattern, and vice versa. (More precisely, this is true of the
sines of the angles.)
The diffraction angles are invariant under scaling; that is,
they depend only on the ratio of the wavelength to the
size of the diffracting object.
When the diffracting object has a periodic structure, for
example in a diffraction grating, the features generally
become sharper. The third figure, for example, shows a
comparison of a double-slit pattern with a pattern formed
by five slits, both sets of slits having the same spacing,
between the center of one slit and the next.
The upper half of this image shows a
diffraction pattern of He-Ne laser
Matter wave diffraction beam on an elliptic aperture. The
lower half is its 2D Fourier transform
According to quantum theory every particle exhibits wave approximately reconstructing the
properties and can therefore diffract. Diffraction of electrons and shape of the aperture.
neutrons is one of the powerful arguments in favor of quantum
mechanics. The wavelength associated with a particle is the de
Broglie wavelength
where is Planck's constant and is the momentum of the particle (mass × velocity for slow-moving
particles). For example, a sodium atom traveling at about 300 m/s would have a de Broglie wavelength of
about 50 picometres.

Diffraction of matter waves has been observed for small particles, like electrons, neutrons, atoms, and even
large molecules. The short wavelength of these matter waves makes them ideally suited to study the atomic
crystal structure of solids, small molecules and proteins.

Bragg diffraction
Diffraction from a large three-dimensional periodic structure such as
many thousands of atoms in a crystal is called Bragg diffraction. It
is similar to what occurs when waves are scattered from a
diffraction grating. Bragg diffraction is a consequence of
interference between waves reflecting from many different crystal
planes. The condition of constructive interference is given by
Bragg's law:

where is the wavelength, is the distance between crystal planes,

is the angle of the diffracted wave, and is an integer known as
the order of the diffracted beam. Following Bragg's law, each dot (or
reflection) in this diffraction pattern
forms from the constructive
Bragg diffraction may be carried out using either electromagnetic interference of X-rays passing
radiation of very short wavelength like X-rays or matter waves like through a crystal. The data can be
neutrons (and electrons) whose wavelength is on the order of (or used to determine the crystal's
much smaller than) the atomic spacing.[20] The pattern produced atomic structure.
gives information of the separations of crystallographic planes ,
allowing one to deduce the crystal structure.

For completeness, Bragg diffraction is a limit for a large number of atoms with X-rays or neutrons, and is
rarely valid for electron diffraction or with solid particles in the size range of less than 50 nanometers.[20]

Coherence
The description of diffraction relies on the interference of waves emanating from the same source taking
different paths to the same point on a screen. In this description, the difference in phase between waves that
took different paths is only dependent on the effective path length. This does not take into account the fact
that waves that arrive at the screen at the same time were emitted by the source at different times. The initial
phase with which the source emits waves can change over time in an unpredictable way. This means that
waves emitted by the source at times that are too far apart can no longer form a constant interference pattern
since the relation between their phases is no longer time independent.[21]: 9 19 

The length over which the phase in a beam of light is correlated is called the coherence length. In order for
interference to occur, the path length difference must be smaller than the coherence length. This is
sometimes referred to as spectral coherence, as it is related to the presence of different frequency
components in the wave. In the case of light emitted by an atomic transition, the coherence length is related
to the lifetime of the excited state from which the atom made its transition.[22]: 7 1–74 [23]: 3 14–316 

If waves are emitted from an extended source, this can lead to incoherence in the transversal direction.
When looking at a cross section of a beam of light, the length over which the phase is correlated is called
the transverse coherence length. In the case of Young's double-slit experiment, this would mean that if the
transverse coherence length is smaller than the spacing between the two slits, the resulting pattern on a
screen would look like two single-slit diffraction patterns.[22]: 7 4–79 

In the case of particles like electrons, neutrons, and atoms, the coherence length is related to the spatial
extent of the wave function that describes the particle.[24]: 1 07 

Applications

Diffraction before destruction

A new way to image single biological particles has emerged since the 2010s, utilising the bright X-rays
generated by X-ray free-electron lasers. These femtosecond-duration pulses will allow for the (potential)
imaging of single biological macromolecules. Due to these short pulses, radiation damage can be outrun,
and diffraction patterns of single biological macromolecules will be able to be obtained.[25][26]

See also
Angle-sensitive pixel
Atmospheric diffraction
Brocken spectre
Cloud iridescence
Coherent diffraction imaging
Diffraction from slits
Diffraction spike
Diffraction vs. interference
Diffractive solar sail
Diffractometer
Dynamical theory of diffraction
Electron diffraction
Fraunhofer diffraction
Fresnel imager
Fresnel number
Fresnel zone
Point spread function
Powder diffraction
Quasioptics
Refraction
Reflection
Schaefer–Bergmann diffraction
Thinned-array curse
X-ray scattering techniques

References
1. Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Physico mathesis de lumine, coloribus, et iride, aliisque annexis
libri duo (Bologna ("Bonomia"), Italy: Vittorio Bonati, 1665), page 2 (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2016120115
3749/https://books.google.com/books?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2) 2016-12-01 at the
Wayback Machine:

Original  : Nobis alius quartus modus illuxit, quem nunc proponimus,

vocamusque; diffractionem, quia advertimus lumen aliquando diffringi, hoc est
partes eius multiplici dissectione separatas per idem tamen medium in diversa
ulterius procedere, eo modo, quem mox declarabimus.
 Translation  : It has illuminated for us another, fourth way, which we now make
known and call "diffraction" [i.e., shattering], because we sometimes observe
light break up; that is, that parts of the compound [i.e., the beam of light],
separated by division, advance farther through the medium but in different
[directions], as we will soon show.

2. Cajori, Florian "A History of Physics in its Elementary Branches, including the evolution of
physical laboratories." (https://archive.org/details/ahistoryphysics00cajogoog/page/n102)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161201075614/https://books.google.com/books?id
=KZ4C-1CRtYQC&ots=c_YpkkbTpT&dq=Florian%20Cajori%20history%20of%20physics&
pg=PA88) 2016-12-01 at the Wayback Machine MacMillan Company, New York 1899
3. Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Prentice Hall communications
engineering and emerging technologies series, T. S. Rappaport, Prentice Hall, 2002 pg 126
4. Suryanarayana, C.; Norton, M. Grant (29 June 2013). X-Ray Diffraction: A Practical
Approach (https://books.google.com/books?id=RRfrBwAAQBAJ). Springer Science &
Business Media. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4899-0148-4. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
5. Kokkotas, Kostas D. (2003). "Gravitational Wave Physics". Encyclopedia of Physical
Science and Technology: 67–85. doi:10.1016/B0-12-227410-5/00300-8 (https://doi.org/10.1
016%2FB0-12-227410-5%2F00300-8). ISBN 9780122274107.
6. Juffmann, Thomas; Milic, Adriana; Müllneritsch, Michael; Asenbaum, Peter; Tsukernik,
Alexander; Tüxen, Jens; Mayor, Marcel; Cheshnovsky, Ori; Arndt, Markus (25 March 2012).
"Real-time single-molecule imaging of quantum interference". Nature Nanotechnology. 7 (5):
297–300. arXiv:1402.1867 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.1867). Bibcode:2012NatNa...7..297J
(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012NatNa...7..297J). doi:10.1038/nnano.2012.34 (http
s://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnnano.2012.34). ISSN 1748-3395 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/174
8-3395). PMID 22447163 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22447163). S2CID 5918772 (http
s://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5918772).
7. Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Physico-mathesis de lumine, coloribus, et iride, aliisque adnexis
… [The physical mathematics of light, color, and the rainbow, and other things appended …]
(Bologna ("Bonomia"), (Italy): Vittorio Bonati, 1665), pp. 1–11 (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161201074612/
https://books.google.com/books?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1) 2016-12-01 at the Wayback
Machine: "Propositio I. Lumen propagatur seu diffunditur non solum directe, refracte, ac
reflexe, sed etiam alio quodam quarto modo, diffracte." (Proposition 1. Light propagates or
spreads not only in a straight line, by refraction, and by reflection, but also by a somewhat
different fourth way: by diffraction.) On p. 187, Grimaldi also discusses the interference of
light from two sources: "Propositio XXII. Lumen aliquando per sui communicationem reddit
obscuriorem superficiem corporis aliunde, ac prius illustratam." (Proposition 22. Sometimes
light, as a result of its transmission, renders dark a body's surface, [which had been]
previously illuminated by another [source].)
8. Jean Louis Aubert (1760). Memoires pour l'histoire des sciences et des beaux arts (https://ar
chive.org/details/memoirespourlhi146aubegoog). Paris: Impr. de S. A. S.; Chez E. Ganeau.
pp. 149 (https://archive.org/details/memoirespourlhi146aubegoog/page/n151). "grimaldi
diffraction 0–1800."
9. Sir David Brewster (1831). A Treatise on Optics (https://archive.org/details/atreatiseonopti00
brewgoog). London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green and John Taylor. pp. 95 (https://
archive.org/details/atreatiseonopti00brewgoog/page/n113).
10. Letter from James Gregory to John Collins, dated 13 May 1673. Reprinted in:
Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century …, ed. Stephen Jordan
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diffraction of light"), Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. 1, pp. 239–81 (March 1816);
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External links
The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. I Ch. 30: Diffraction (https://feynmanlectures.caltech.
edu/I_30.html)
"Scattering and diffraction" (https://www.xtal.iqf.csic.es/Cristalografia/parte_05-en.html).
Crystallography. International Union of Crystallography.
Using a cd as a diffraction grating (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUszmEDm3FU&t=3
5s) at Youtube

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