Topic summary
Diffraction order
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Diffraction grating.
Theory of operation
The diffracted light that corresponds to direct transmission for a transmissive diffraction grating or specular reflection for a reflective grating is called the zero order, and is denoted . The other diffracted light intensity maxima occur at angles represented by non-zero integer diffraction orders . Note that can be positive or negative, corresponding to diffracted orders on both sides of the zero-order diffracted beam.
