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Diffraction and Imaging

️Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy - University of Cambridge

This Teaching and Learning Package presents a brief summary of diffraction and imaging, using an optical system. The analogies to X-ray and electron diffraction make knowledge of optical diffraction key to understanding the behaviour. Diffraction plays a useful part in materials science, with such applications as the determination of crystal structure and the study of dislocation lines.

$Photo of a zebra diffraction grating$

Aims
Before you start
Introduction
Diffraction patterns 1
Diffraction patterns 2
Two-dimensional diffraction
Image formation
Information obtained from diffraction pattern
Applications of the theory of optical diffraction and imaging
Summary
Questions
Going further

Begin

Photo of a zebra diffraction grating

First created: April 2004. "Going further" updated: January 2008, Added HTML5 animation: September 2023