Diffraction Efficiency

Diffraction efficiency is the performance of diffractive optical elements – especially diffraction gratings – in terms of power throughput. It's a measure of how much optical power is diffracted into a designated direction compared to the power incident onto the diffractive element of grating.

If the diffracted power is designated with $P$ and the incident power with $P_0$ the efficiency $\eta$ reads
:$\eta = \frac \ .$

Grating efficiency

In the most common case – the diffraction efficiency of optical gratings (therefore also called ''grating efficiency'') – there are two possibilities to specify efficiency:
*The ''absolute efficiency'' is defined as above and relates the power diffracted into a particular order to the incident power.
*The ''relative efficiency'' relates the power diffracted into a particular order to the power that would be reflected by a mirror of the same coating as the grating, therefore attributing to inevitable reflection losses at the grating but not caused by inefficient diffraction itself.

References

External links

*{{cite web , url=https://www.gratinglab.com/Information/Handbook/Handbook.aspx , title=Efficiency Characteristics of Diffraction Gratings , author=Christopher Palmer , year=2020 , work=Diffraction Grating Handbook (8th edition) , publisher=MKS Newport , accessdate=13 March 2020

Diffraction