Fundamentals of Light and Lasers: Diffraction

This lecture, presented by Dr. Chrys Panayiotou, covers the basics of diffraction as it relates to the fundamentals of light and lasers. First, Panayiotou defines diffraction (which is the phenomenon caused by interference between waves coming from secondary coherent sources located on the same undivided wavefront), and uses this definition to launch into a discussion of Huygens' Principle and the two methods that produce diffraction. Panayiotou ends the lecture with a summary of all topics introduced.