Diffraction gratings are curious things. Score a series of equally spaced tiny lines in a surface, and it will cause reflected or transmitted light to bend and separate into its component wavelengths.

A variety of ultrathin nanomechanical diffraction gratings that have been fashioned from the “wonder material” graphene have been created by an international team of researchers. The team wanted to ...

The diffraction grating of a spectrometer partially determines the optical resolution that can be achieved by the spectrometer and also determines the wavelength range. Selecting the correct grating ...

What happens when a wave passes through some opening? It diffracts - or you like, you could say "bends". If the size of the opening is comparable to the wavelength of the wave, the bending can be ...

Today, astronomers seek to observe the faintest and most distant objects possible. Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), with apertures in the order of several dozen meters, are the next generation ...

One of the coolest things about physics is that the same basic concept can pop up in several seemingly unrelated things: say, a CD, the seed shrimp’s antennae, certain fossils in the Burgess shale, ...

Using a novel method, beams of laser light can be deflected using air alone. An invisible grating made only of air is not only immune to damage from the laser light, but it also preserves the original ...

Visual demonstration of the performance of the diffraction grating. The zeroth order transmission refers to light that goes straight through the grating without undergoing diffraction (which should be ...