Experiments to determine the grating element of diffraction grating
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In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a periodic structure that splits and diffracts light into several beams travelling in different directions. The emerging coloration is a form of structural coloration.[1][2] The directions of these beams depend on the spacing of the grating and the wavelength of the light so that the grating acts as the dispersive element. Because of this, gratings are commonly used in monochromators and spectrometers.
For practical applications, gratings generally have ridges or rulings on their surface rather than dark lines. Such gratings can be either transmissive or reflective. Gratings that modulate the phase rather than the amplitude of the incident light are also produced, frequently using holography.[3]
The principles of diffraction gratings were discovered by James Gregory, about a year after Newton's prism experiments, initially with items such as bird feathers.[4] The first man-made diffraction grating was made around 1785 by Philadelphia inventor David Rittenhouse, who strung hairs between two finely threaded screws.[5][6] This was similar to notable German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer's wire diffraction grating in 1821.[7][8] In the 1860s, gratings with the lowest line-distance d were created by Friedrich Adolph Nobert (1806-1881) in Greifswald,[9] then the two Americans Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816-1892) and William B. Rogers (1804-1882) took over the lead,[10][11] and by the end of the 19th century, the concave gratings of Henry Augustus Rowland (1848-1901) were the best gratings available.[12][13]