Theory of Certain Diffraction Gratings Produced by the Holographic Method

Abstract

It is now well known that a system of interference fringes photographed on a photographic plate has very interesting properties when used as a diffraction grating. This paper considers two cases. One is when the photographic plate is a plane surface; the aberration properties of this are worked out as a function of wavelength. There are three positions for which the spherical aberration is zero. Of these, one is of little interest as this is simply zero-order position. Another case considered was that of a photographic plate in the form of a concave spherical surface. In this case, there are three positions at which the spherical aberration is zero. The nature of variation of spherical aberration between these zero-aberration positions is presented in the form of curves computed from the theory of these gratings.