ONE-DIMENSIONAL LIGHT BEAM WIDENING USING PRISMS FOR INCREASE OF SPECTROMETER SPECTRAL RESOLUTION AND ANGULAR DISPERSION

Abstract

The increase of angular dispersion and slit resolution limit of grating spectrometers by means of variation of grating parameters is limited by its period and allowable order of diffraction. The special solutions (echelle, holographic, immersion gratings) are acceptable in a limited parameter range and are technologically complex in fabrication, thus hardly applicable to instruments of mass production. We propose to decrease slit resolution limit by one-dimensional beam widening in dispersion plane by means of passing it through oblique prism before incidence onto diffraction grating. The increase of angular dispersion can be achieved by narrowing of dispersed beams after grating while passing through other oblique prism. We prove that slit resolution limit in such a system changes approximately as multiplied by angular magnification of the first prism (that is less than 1 times). Also angular dispersion changed approximately as multiplied by angular magnification of the second prism. The Fresnel reflection from the faces of prisms is analyzed. Accounting for that factor gives the increase of resolution about 1,4–1,6 times without loss of light (and can be 2 and more times while using anti-reflective coating). The proposed method is different from the similar ones first of all by its simplicity because it uses simple optical elements – plane reflective grating and thin prisms. It can be applied to amend the analytical characteristics of dispersive spectrometers, first of all the small-sized ones.

Keywords

• dispersive spectrometer
• grating
• resolution limit
• angular dispersion