Scattering theory of holographic diffraction

A theoretical and experimental analysis is presented of the diffraction process in bleached silver halide emulsions. The analysis is based on the particle nature of the emulsion, and is sufficiently general to permit the determination of the angular response of the hologram and its diffraction efficiency from the measured parameters of the emulsion. The analysis of the holographic process consists of an analysis of the recording of the interference pattern resulting from the superposition of two coherent fields on a photographic emulsion and the subsequent processing of the emulsion, and a description of the interaction of the incident reconstructing field with the volume of scatterers within the holographic emulsion. The experimental analysis determines the material properties of the emulsion and provides a quantitative determination of the probability that a scatterer will exist at a given site in the hologram.