It is shown that the leakage modes of multilayer corrugated dielectric and
metal-dielectric structures are extremely important for the achievement of
high efficiency of these structures as diffraction gratings. Three types of
grating structures are considered: a corrugated waveguide layer on a flat
multilayer dielectric mirror (type 1); a multilayer dielectric mirror on a
corrugated substrate (i.e., a totally corrugated structure) (type 2); and a
structure of the intermediate type (type 3), The performance characteristi
cs of these structures used in the Littrow mounting are compared. A diffrac
tion grating based on a double-layer waveguide is fabricated.