Here is an old movie (1978) of how diffraction gratings are produced. It was made by our Government research organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Master gratings are still made this way today, although some applications can use holographic gratings that are produced using laser-based optical methods.
https://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/video/12302/the-grating-rulers/
Take particular note around 20:50 in the video where an aluminium plate has been cooled to -196degC using liquid nitrogen. A replicated grating is separated from the submaster by cooling one half, thus creating a thermally induced strain in the pair that causes the interface to shear.
FYI we typically use gratings that are ruled with approximately 48000 lines per inch.
Gratings are an important part of optical spectrometers. The company featured making atomic absorption spectrometers (just after where the grating was split in the video) is Varian Techtron. Agilent Technologies took over that company back in 2010. We still replicate gratings in exactly the same way using the same equipment that we used back then! We still make and sell AA instruments, along with a large portfolio of other optical and mass spectrometer products.
https://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/video/12302/the-grating-rulers/
Take particular note around 20:50 in the video where an aluminium plate has been cooled to -196degC using liquid nitrogen. A replicated grating is separated from the submaster by cooling one half, thus creating a thermally induced strain in the pair that causes the interface to shear.
FYI we typically use gratings that are ruled with approximately 48000 lines per inch.
Gratings are an important part of optical spectrometers. The company featured making atomic absorption spectrometers (just after where the grating was split in the video) is Varian Techtron. Agilent Technologies took over that company back in 2010. We still replicate gratings in exactly the same way using the same equipment that we used back then! We still make and sell AA instruments, along with a large portfolio of other optical and mass spectrometer products.
