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references

Jake McCoy edited this page Aug 25, 2026 · 1 revision

References

The literature this implementation is built from, mapped to the part of the project each one serves. Where two sources disagree, the resolution is recorded in conventions.md §10 and summarised in findings.md.


Normative

Heilmann, R. K., Huenemoerder, D. P., McCoy, J. A. & McEntaffer, R. L. Diffraction Gratings for X-ray Spectroscopy. Springer ISSI Scientific Reports (2024). arXiv:2409.02297

§2.1 gives the conical framework — the generalized grating equation, the wave-vector construction, the Kirchhoff scalar form. §4 gives the blazed reflection-grating scalar efficiency and the validity guards.

This is normative where it disagrees with any other source here: it is published, peer-reviewed, and self-consistent under Parseval.


Scalar theory

McCoy, J. A. Scalar Treatment of Gratings, PhD thesis Appendix D, Pennsylvania State University.

The primary derivation, and the most detailed treatment of the closed forms: square wave, sinusoid and sawtooth, with the off-plane substitution λ → λ csc γ that lets one module serve both mounts. Four transcription errors and one substantive difference from the ISSI chapter are recorded in conventions.md §10.

McCoy, J. A. On X-ray Reflection, PhD thesis Appendix C.

Fresnel reflectivity, the soft-X-ray index of refraction, penetration depth, and §C.1.4 surface roughness — the basis for the Névot–Croce and Debye–Waller factors once the materials layer lands.

Harvey, J. E. & Pfisterer, R. N. Understanding diffraction grating behavior. Opt. Eng. 58(8), 087105 (2019); part II, 59(1), 017103 (2020).

A modern parametric / linear-systems treatment that handles conical diffraction natively. Not yet implemented; it is the natural basis for a second scalar backend to compare against the Kirchhoff one.

Born, M. & Wolf, E. Principles of Optics.

Kirchhoff diffraction theory and the Fraunhofer limit.


RCWA

Pommet, D. A., Grann, E. B. & Moharam, M. G. Effects of process errors on the diffraction characteristics of binary dielectric gratings. Appl. Opt. (1995).

Benchmark cases, and directly relevant to profile-error sensitivity — the question of how much a measured deviation from an ideal profile changes efficiency.

Li, L. — Fourier factorization rules.

Non-negotiable for the RCWA backend. Without the correct factorization, TM metallic cases converge badly and cross-method plots would misrepresent RCWA rather than reveal anything about physics.


C-method

Dusséaux, R., Faure, C. & Chandezon, J. New perturbation theory of diffraction gratings and its application to the study of ghosts. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 12(6), 1271 (1995).

From the group that originated the coordinate-transformation method.

Breidne, M. & Maystre, D. Variational theory of diffraction gratings and its application to the study of ghosts. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72(4), 499 (1982).


Integral method

Maystre, D. & Popov, E. Integral Method for Gratings, ch. 4 in E. Popov (ed.), Gratings: Theory and Numeric Applications, Institut Fresnel / CNRS / AMU (2012). Freely available.

The implementation guide — now the implemented guide. 59 pages, including §4.5 on conical mounting and §4.6 on the numerical tooling. The perfect-conductivity solver follows it directly; the anchors actually used: eqs. (4.31)–(4.34) TE, (4.37)–(4.42) TM, (4.65) the conical invariance theorem, (4.70)–(4.74) the equal-arc rectangular rule, (4.82)–(4.87) the Kummer kernel acceleration, (4.95)–(4.100) the log-singularity split, and Tables 4.1/4.2 as literature benchmarks (Table 4.1 is reproduced in tests/test_integral_core.py). Caveats worth knowing before extending: §4.6.5 on edges (the measured first-order TM corner convergence), §4.6.6 on graded meshes (the fix). One transcription warning: the printed sgn/sign placement in eqs. (4.33)/(4.40)/(4.41) did not survive PDF text extraction — the implementation derives the kernels from the spectral form and pins every sign with the flat-mirror and Table 4.1 tests instead.

Goray, L. I. & Schmidt, G. Solving conical diffraction grating problems with integral equations. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 27, 585 (2010).

Conical plus integral equations is exactly the off-plane X-ray case. Goray is the author of the standard commercial implementation; Schmidt supplied the rigorous analysis. Implemented at M20 (conductivity="tabulated"; theory/integral.md §8) with the anchors: eq. (6) the conical jump conditions, eqs. (15)–(21) the potential operators, eq. (23) the coupled system (re-derived in project conventions — their normal points into the metal and their potentials carry a factor 2, so transcription is a sign trap; the flat-interface Fresnel tests pin every sign instead), §2.C the energy balance, eq. (26) the absorption integral, §3 the numerical-option note that V⁺∂ₜV⁻ may be discretised by numerical differentiation (the option taken, via the spectral D_t matrix). Their comparison Tables 3/5/6 are usable validation data; Table 4 is a publisher's duplication of Table 3 — see findings.md. Table 2's incident state needs Li's polarization-angle convention (δ measured so tan δ = |E_s/E_p|, ψ the relative phase — decoded from the Table 3/4 footnotes) and its deep lamellar profile is corner-limited on the current mesh, so it is left to the graded-mesh milestone.

Li, L. Multilayer modal method for diffraction gratings of arbitrary profile, depth, and permittivity (and the conical-mount companion data). J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 10, 2581 (1993).

The independent cross-method source behind Goray & Schmidt's comparison tables — what makes their Table 3 a genuine two-code anchor rather than a self-comparison.

Maystre, D. Analytic Properties of Diffraction Gratings, ch. 2 of the same volume.

Anomalies and analytic structure — directly relevant to the Rayleigh-anomaly instability documented in findings.md.

Kalhor, H. A. & Neureuther, A. R. Effects of conductivity, groove shape, and physical phenomena on the design of diffraction gratings. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62 (1972).

Early integral-equation treatment; useful for the perfectly-conducting limit.

McCoy, J. A. Modeling Diffraction Efficiency, PhD thesis Chapter 2 §2.2.

The same derivation in this project's notation: boundary value problem → Helmholtz with boundary conditions → Green's function → Dirichlet enforcement → the perfectly-conducting limit, with Σℰ = 1 proved via Green's theorem. §2.1 documents the ALS beamline 6.3.2 measurement method.

§2.2.3 is outdated and should not be ported as written — it describes the commercial code as internally multiplying by Fresnel reflectivity in perfect-conductivity mode, which contradicts the Σℰ = 1 result proved immediately above it. See conventions.md §10, item 5.


Validation

Moharam, M. G. & Gaylord, T. K. — canonical RCWA test cases.

Li, L. — crossed-grating benchmarks.

These live in the visible and near-IR, which is why that regime is the project's validation regime even though soft X-ray is the application. See roadmap.md.

Heuberger, G., Klepp, J., Guo, J., Tomita, Y. & Fally, M. Light diffraction from a phase grating at oblique incidence in the intermediate diffraction regime. Appl. Phys. B 127, 72 (2021).

Measured data on where scalar theory stops working — the empirical basis for a scalar validity map.


Application context

Tutt, J. et al. — diffraction efficiency testing of sinusoidal and blazed off-plane reflection gratings. J. Astron. Instrum. (2016).

Marlowe, H. et al. — polarization dependence at grazing incidence. The justification for treating soft-X-ray reflectivity as polarization-independent, which is why the reference corpus carries only TE.

McCoy, J. A. et al. — J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B (2018); ApJ 891, 114 (2020); OSA Continuum 3(11), 3141 (2020).


Metrology

Villarrubia, J. S. Algorithms for scanned probe microscope image simulation, surface reconstruction, and tip estimation. J. Res. Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. 102(4), 425–454 (1997).

The tip-deconvolution milestone (roadmap §4): morphological dilation/erosion, the certainty map that marks unrecoverable points, and blind tip estimation. Erosion bounds the true surface; it does not recover it.


Sibling code

PyXFocus — sequential X-ray raytracer (Allured; forks by kbuffo and this project's author). Its grating.py holds the analytic Littrow-mount formulas (blazeYaw, blazeAngle) slated for a native port (roadmap §3), and its GUI's order-centroid/spot-width estimator is the instrument-level cross-check of gratinglab.resolution. The raytracer itself is deliberately not absorbed.

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