Nonparaxial analysis of continuous self-imaging gratings in oblique illumination

Abstract : Tolerance in angles of continuously self-imaging gratings (CSIGs) is explored. The degradation in angle of the shape of the point-spread function is theoretically investigated and illustrated by simulations and experiments. The formalism presented is inspired by the one used for classical lenses and can be easily generalized to diffraction gratings. It turns out that well-designed CSIGs could be used for scanning optical systems requiring a large field of view.