I GREATLY regret that in a note of mine on a “new mode of using the concave diffraction grating,” in the “Astronomical Column” of March 22 (p. 501), I wrongly interpreted a sentence of Prof Rizzo's ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

The spectrum of laser technologies available to hackers has gradually widened from basic gas lasers through CO2 tubes, diode lasers, and now fiber lasers. One of the newer entries is the MOPA laser, ...

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 ...

Spectrographs are important tools for studying many biological and chemical processes and substances, from pigments to plant growth and nucleic acids to pharmaceuticals, providing information about ...

Mimicking nature A material designed to mimic a quirky iridescent patch on a butterfly's wing may help prevent counterfeiting, say US engineers. The 'photonic' material, so called because it affects ...

In order to determine the properties of a material, detailed knowledge of the structures it contains at the atomic level is required. This information can be obtained using conventional X-ray ...

Here’s a great picture from [Jelly & Marshmallows] that shows off the wild effects of melted chocolate poured onto a diffraction grating. A diffraction grating is a kind of optical component whose ...