Diffraction efficiency
Fraction of optical power diffracted by an optical element
In optics, 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 P0, the efficiency η reads
01Grating 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.
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