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Diffraction is the same physical effect as interference, but interference is typically applied to superposition of a few waves and the term diffraction is used when many waves are superposed. [1]: 433 Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the word diffraction and was the first to record accurate observations of the phenomenon in 1660.
A blazed diffraction grating reflecting only the green portion of the spectrum from a room's fluorescent lighting. For a diffraction grating, the relationship between the grating spacing (i.e., the distance between adjacent grating grooves or slits), the angle of the wave (light) incidence to the grating, and the diffracted wave from the grating is known as the grating equation.
Laser diffraction analyzer. Laser diffraction analysis, also known as laser diffraction spectroscopy, is a technology that utilizes diffraction patterns of a laser beam passed through any object ranging from nanometers to millimeters in size [1] to quickly measure geometrical dimensions of a particle.
X-ray diffraction is a generic term for phenomena associated with changes in the direction of X-ray beams due to interactions with the electrons around atoms. It occurs due to elastic scattering, when there is no change in the energy of the waves. The resulting map of the directions of the X-rays far from the sample is called a diffraction pattern.
Radio telescopes are frequently diffraction-limited, because the wavelengths they use (from millimeters to meters) are so long that the atmospheric distortion is negligible. Space-based telescopes (such as Hubble, or a number of non-optical telescopes) always work at their diffraction limit, if their design is free of optical aberration.
Because diffraction is the result of addition of all waves (of given wavelength) along all unobstructed paths, the usual procedure is to consider the contribution of an infinitesimally small neighborhood around a certain path (this contribution is usually called a wavelet) and then integrate over all paths (= add all wavelets) from the source to the detector (or given point on a screen).
This work led to a theory of diffraction for light and opened an entire area of study in physical optics. [27] Wave optics was successfully unified with electromagnetic theory by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s. [28]
Neutron diffraction can therefore reveal the microscopic magnetic structure of a material. [4] Magnetic scattering does require an atomic form factor as it is caused by the much larger electron cloud around the tiny nucleus. The intensity of the magnetic contribution to the diffraction peaks will therefore decrease towards higher angles.