The Physics of Roof Prisms and Phase Coatings, Simplified: Part III

Diffraction patterns and resolution In the previous post we traced the passage of light through an Amici roof prism, which required decomposing vectors into components, accounting for phase shifts upon reflection, and then looking at how the waves will be recombined. We can now see that there will be an opportunity for interference effects to … More The Physics of Roof Prisms and Phase Coatings, Simplified: Part III

The Physics of Roof Prisms and Phase Coatings

I’ve written a technical article on the topic of why the roof prisms used in binoculars require specialized coatings in order to improve their performance. I was prompted to pull this together because I couldn’t find a single reference that traced through this interesting problem in a non-trivial way. The article includes a derivation of … More The Physics of Roof Prisms and Phase Coatings