Patent ID: 7057819

Claim:
A blazed grating device comprising: a. a plurality of elongated elements, each element including one or more lengthwise slits within an active optical area and a light reflective planar surface, the light reflective planar surfaces lying in a grating plane; and b. a support structure coupled to the elongated elements to maintain a position of the elongated elements relative to each other and to enable rotational tilting of each element about a lengthwise axis, and between a blazed configuration wherein the elongated elements act to diffract an incident light into a first distribution of diffracted light with first-order diffraction at a first angle θ1B, and a flat configuration wherein the elongated elements act to diffract the incident light into a second distribution of diffracted light with first-order diffraction at a second angle which is a multiple (at least twice) of the first angle θ1B, wherein the one or more slits symmetrically divide the width of the element within the active optical area into a plurality of segments of substantially equal width, and wherein the elongated elements are rotationally tilted to a blaze angle with respect to the grating plane.