Decorative, ornamental, or jewelry articles having arrays of diffraction gratings

摘要

An article comprising (i) a substantially flat substrate bearing a set of diffraction gratings, and (ii) a jewelry mounting secured to the substrate. The gratings occupy areas that correspond to a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional faceted gemstone. Sub-gratings are sized and positioned so that perceived sub-gratings images overlap. Sub-gratings within each set differs from adjacent sub-gratings with respect to grating wavevector magnitude, so that the overlapped perceived images result in an overall perceived color of sub-grating set. In one embodiment, two or more gratings comprise sub-grating sets having parallel wavevectors; each sub-grating set differs from at least one other with respect to grating wavevector direction. In another embodiment, one or more gratings comprise sub-grating sets having non-parallel wavevectors.

主权项

1. An article comprising (i) a substantially flat substrate bearing a set of substantially flat, substantially coplanar diffraction gratings, and (ii) a jewelry mounting attached to the substrate, wherein:
(a) the gratings of the set are arranged so as to occupy corresponding areas of the substrate that are arranged to correspond to a two-dimensional projection of multiple, non-coplanar facets of a three-dimensional faceted gemstone; (b) two or more gratings of the set comprise corresponding sets of sub-gratings, and, for two or more of those sets of sub-gratings, the sub-gratings of each set are characterized by a corresponding single sub-grating wavevector direction; (c) each set of sub-gratings differs from one or more other sets of sub-gratings with respect to the corresponding single sub-grating wavevector direction, so that each set of sub-gratings differs from at least one other set of sub-gratings with respect to corresponding directions of dispersion of spectrally dispersed output directions of a diffracted portion of input light incident on the set of gratings along a given input direction; (d) for each set of sub-gratings, each sub-grating of that set is sized and positioned relative to the other sub-gratings of that set so that, when illuminated along the given input direction and viewed along a given output direction from an intended viewing distance, a corresponding perceived image of each of the sub-gratings of the set substantially overlaps corresponding perceived images of one or more adjacent sub-gratings of the set; and (e) for each set of sub-gratings, each sub-grating of that set differs from one or more adjacent sub-gratings of that set with respect to a corresponding grating wavevector magnitude, so that each sub-grating of that set differs from at least one other sub-grating of that set with respect to corresponding output spectra of the corresponding perceived images, the corresponding sub-grating output spectra of the corresponding overlapped perceived images result in an overall perceived color of the corresponding overlapped perceived images.