The signal-to-noise ratio and imaging performance of optical instruments is often limited by instrumental straylight. In the case of state-of-the-art spectrometers, scattered light level of the diffraction grating, quantified in terms of its BRDF, remains the main cause. It is therefore essential for the designer to estimate the scattering behavior of diffraction gratings realistically. We thus developed a simple semi-analytical model based on scalar Fourier optics. In this framework, the BRDF is shown to be proportional to the angular spectrum of plane waves emanating from the grating aperture function. The model can easily incorporate different manufacturing errors of real gratings that are specific for the most common mastering methods, i.e. holographic lithography and mechanical ruling. The influence of the most important manufacturing errors is demonstrated and BRDF functions based on the model are compared to measurements from real holographic and mechanically ruled diffraction gratings.
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