diffraction
IPA: dɪfrˈækʃʌn
noun
- (physics) The bending of a wave around an obstacle.
- (quantum mechanics) The breaking up of an electromagnetic wave as it passes a geometric structure (e.g. a slit), followed by reconstruction of the wave by interference.
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Examples of "diffraction" in Sentences
- The principle of X-ray diffraction is old and was awarded with the Nobel Prize in physics already in 1915.
- The one at f22 has a much wider depth of field and the overall loss of resolution due to diffraction is not noticeable at this magnification.
- The apparent bending of sound waves around corners is an example of diffraction, which is a characteristic behavior of waves encountering an obstacle.
- The smallest feature is limited by how small a dot of light you can make with your imaging system, which faces a fundamental limit called the diffraction limit.
- The mathematical theory of diffraction is relatively complicated, and requires a significant amount of vector calculus, so we won’t go into too much detail here.
- Although the experiments in diffraction confirm so beautifully the de Broglie-Schrödinger wave theory, the position is less satisfactory as regards the extended theory due to Dirac.
- We’ve mentioned above that diffraction is only appreciable when light interacts with objects of size comparable to the wavelength, and this is true of light passing through the slit, as well.
- In chemistry, the combination of neutron diffraction, which provides information on the location of atomic nuclei in a molecular crystal, together with X-ray diffraction, which is sensitive to the location of the electrons, gives valuable information on molecular structure.
- There is no better instance of Newton's quantitative approach to his experiments than the following undated manu - script page describing things “To be tryed” to elucidate the phenomenon of diffraction, that is the bending of light, and the production of colored fringes (fasciae to Newton), when light passes through a tiny hole or past a knife-edge:
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