Diffraction of gratings with rough edges

We analyze the far field and near field diffraction pattern produced by an amplitude grating whose strips present rough edges. Due to the stochastic nature of the edges a statistical approach is performed. The grating with rough edges is not purely periodic, although it still divides the incident beam in diffracted orders. The intensity of each diffraction order is modified by the statistical properties of the irregular edges and it strongly decreases when roughness increases except for the zero-th diffraction order. This decreasing firstly affects to the higher orders. Then, it is possible to obtain an amplitude binary grating with only diffraction orders -1, 0 and +1. On the other hand, numerical simulations based on Rayleigh-Sommerfeld approach have been used for the case of near field. They show that the edges of the self-images are smoother than the edges of the grating. Finally, we fabricate gratings with rough edges and an experimental verification of the results is performed. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America