Diffraction orderwavelength

A light source is incident on a grating at a particular angle, α. We observe it at a particular angle, ß. That means that nλ is a constant for fixed geometry. But that does NOT mean that a fixed geometry gives us just one wavelength at a time. Rather, n can be any integer, and so there is a family of wavelengths all of which are transmitted to a detector at once. Suppose we choose d, α, and ß so that nλ = 1.2 µm or 1200 nm. The wavelengths that reach the detector are:

Well, isn't that embarrassing! We get at least 7 different wavelengths playing on our detector. This is called order overlap. ALL gratings suffer from it. There are a number of ways to overcome the problem.

Diffraction orderformula

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