Q: What are diffraction gratings? A diffraction grating is an optical component for spectroscopy that splits light into different wavelengths. A typical diffraction grating has thousands of ...

Atom diffraction had so far been seen in reflection. The atoms were bounced off a surface that was etched to have a grating.

On their silicon-plate grating, however, the researchers arranged pillars of plates in a regular rectangular pattern, with rows separated by just 5 μm and columns by 10 μm (see image above). This ...