
Chapter 13
Dispersing Elements and Systems
We now turn our attention to specific dispersing elements, discussing in turn
the prism, diffraction grating, and Fabry-Perot interferometer. We give expres-
sions for the angular dispersion and resolving power for each of
these,
and point
out other characteristics that are important in their application. Finally, we also
discuss the characteristics of the Fourier spectrometer.
13.1.
DISPERSING PRISM
The angular dispersion ^ of a prism used at minimum deviation is derived in
Section 3.2. A dispersing prism is generally used at or near minimum deviation,
defined as that orientation at which 9 in Fig