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Holographic Diffraction Gratings

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Holographic Diffraction Gratings

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Since the late 1960s, a method distinct from mechanical ruling has also been used to manufacture diffraction gratings. This method involves the photographic recording of a stationary interference fringe field. Such interference gratings, more commonly known as holographic gratings, have several characteristics that distinguish them from ruled gratings. In 1901 Aimé Cotton produced experimental holographic gratings, fifty years before the concepts of holography were developed by Gabor. A few decades later, Michelson considered the interferometric generation of diffraction gratings obvious, but recognized that an intense monochromatic light source and a photosensitive material of sufficiently fine granularity did not then exist. In the mid-1960s, ion lasers and photoresists became available; the former provides a strong monochromatic line and the latter is photoactive at the molecular level, rather than at the crystalline level (such as photographic film).

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