Diffraction grating
Red de difracción
- Date
- 1785 / 1821 · confidence medium
- Place
- Munich, Bavaria, Germany
- Credited to
- David Rittenhouse (1785); Joseph von Fraunhofer (1821)
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A set of closely spaced lines that disperses light by diffraction better than a prism. Fraunhofer made it with wires and later with ruled glass, and used it to measure absolute wavelengths.
Rittenhouse, in Philadelphia, made a hair grating around 1785 without follow-up; Fraunhofer, who rediscovered it in 1821, developed it. Priority is debated.
What it led to
- grating spectroscopes of Kirchhoff and Rowland
- measurement of wavelengths of spectral lines
- astronomical and molecular spectroscopy