Torcal Milla, Francisco JoséSánchez Brea, Luis Miguel2023-06-172023-06-172016-08-011559-128X10.1364/AO.55.005855https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/18974© 2016 Optical Society of America. Funding: Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), project art. 83 num. 52-2016 with Fagor Automation S. Coop. Acknowledgment: In memoriam of J. M. Rico-Garcia. The authors thank A. Luis for his inspirational and encouraging comments.In this work, we obtain analytical expressions for the near-and far-field diffraction of random Ronchi diffraction gratings where the slits of the grating are randomly displaced around their periodical positions. We theoretically show that the effect of randomness in the position of the slits of the grating produces a decrease of the contrast and even disappearance of the self-images for high randomness level at the near field. On the other hand, it cancels high-order harmonics in far field, resulting in only a few central diffraction orders. Numerical simulations by means of the Rayleigh–Sommerfeld diffraction formula are performed in order to corroborate the analytical results. These results are of interest for industrial and technological applications where manufacture errors need to be considered.engjournal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1364/AO.55.005855https://www.osapublishing.orgopen access535Diffraction and gratingsDiffraction gratingsStatistical Optics.Óptica (Física)2209.19 Óptica Física