Unusual distribution of the diffraction patterns from liquid surface waves

Light diffraction from liquid surface acoustic wave at low frequency was experimentally realized. In the experiment, steady and visible diffraction patterns were obtained, and obvious asymmetry of patterns was observed. The approximate conditions of the surface wave diffraction and the damped wave model were theoretically analyzed, and the corresponding analytic expression of the displacement of the nth-order diffraction component to the center of the patterns was derived. This explained the asymmetrical distribution well. The theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.