Interferometers[edit]
Instead of using the concept of multiple beam interference that gratings produce, the two rays may simply interfere. By recording the intensity of two such co-linearly at some fixed point and changing their relative phase one obtains an intensity spectrum as a function of path length difference. One can show that this is equivalent to a Fourier transformed spectrum as a function of frequency. The highest recordable frequency of such a spectrum is dependent on the minimum step size chosen in the scan and the frequency resolution (i.e. how well a certain wave can be defined in terms of its frequency) depends on the maximum path length difference achieved. The latter feature allows a much more compact design for achieving high resolution than for a grating spectrometer because x-ray wavelengths are small compared to attainable path length differences.