Quasiself-similar Cantor gratings and their diffraction

We use the impedance method to study the far-field diffraction of a transmi ssion grating characterized by a Cantor density function. This density func tion is obtained from a multiplicative superposition of periodic functions. Intensity patterns for different configurations are shown when randomizati on and filtering of some periodic components are introduced. These results relate the geometric-statistical properties of the grating with its scatter ed fields; this is the randomness to diffraction. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Son s, Inc.