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]
The amount of diffraction depends on the size of the gap. Diffraction is greatest when the size of the gap is similar to the wavelength of the wave. In this case, when the waves pass through the gap they become semi-circular.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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 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 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).
Bragg diffraction may be carried out using either electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength like X-rays or matter waves like neutrons (and electrons) whose wavelength is on the order of (or much smaller than) the atomic spacing.[20] The pattern produced gives information of the separations of crystallographic planes d \displaystyle d , 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]
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]
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.
The terms diffraction and scattering are often used interchangeably and are considered to be almost synonymous. Diffraction describes a specialized case of light scattering in which an object with regularly repeating features (such as a diffraction grating) produces an orderly diffraction of light in a diffraction pattern. In the real world, most objects are very complex in shape and should be considered to be composed of many individual diffraction features that can collectively produce a random scattering of light.
One of the classic and most fundamental concepts involving diffraction of light waves is the single-slit optical diffraction experiment, first conducted in the early nineteenth century. When a light wave propagates through a slit (or aperture) the result depends upon the physical size of the aperture with respect to the wavelength of the incident beam. This is illustrated in Figure 3 assuming a coherent, monochromatic wave emitted from point source S, similar to light that would be produced by a laser, passes through aperture d and is diffracted, with the primary incident light beam landing at point P and the first secondary maxima occurring at point Q.
As shown in the left side of the figure, when the wavelength (λ) is much smaller than the aperture width (d), the wave simply travels onward in a straight line, just as it would if it were a particle or no aperture were present. However, when the wavelength exceeds the size of the aperture, we experience diffraction of the light according to the equation:
Our discussions of diffraction have used a slit as the aperture through which light is diffracted. However, all optical instruments have circular apertures, for example the pupil of an eye or the circular diaphragm and lenses of a microscope. Circular apertures produce diffraction patterns similar to those described above, except the pattern naturally exhibits a circular symmetry. Mathematical analysis of the diffraction patterns produced by a circular aperture is described by the diffraction equation:
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