Diffraction in volume reflection gratings with variable fringe contrast

Abstract

The PSM model is used to analyze the process of diffraction occurring in volume reflection gratings in which fringe contrast is an arbitrary function of distance within the grating. General analytic expressions for diffraction efficiency at Bragg resonance are obtained for unslanted panchromatic lossless reflection gratings at oblique incidence. These formulas are then checked for several diverse fringe contrast profiles with numerical solutions of the Helmholtz equation, where exceptionally good agreement is observed. Away from Bragg resonance, the case of the hyperbolically decaying fringe contrast profile is shown to lead to an analytic expression for the diffraction efficiency and this is again compared successfully with numerical solutions of the Helmholtz equation.