Grating monochromators disperse ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation typically using replica gratings, which are manufactured from a master grating. A master grating consists of a hard, optically flat, surface that has a large number of parallel and closely spaced grooves. The construction of a master grating is a long, expensive process because the grooves must be of identical size, exactly parallel, and equally spaced over the length of the grating (3–10 cm). A grating for the ultraviolet and visible region typically has 300–2000 grooves/mm, however 1200–1400 grooves/mm is most common. For the infrared region, gratings usually have 10–200 grooves/mm. When a diffraction grating is used, care must be taken in the design of broadband monochromators because the diffraction pattern has overlapping orders. Sometimes broadband preselector filters are inserted in the optical path to limit the width of the diffraction orders so they do not overlap. Sometimes this is done by using a prism as one of the monochromators of a dual monochromator design.
The original high-resolution diffraction gratings were ruled. The construction of high-quality ruling engines was a large undertaking (as well as exceedingly difficult, in past decades), and good gratings were very expensive. The slope of the triangular groove in a ruled grating is typically adjusted to enhance the brightness of a particular diffraction order. This is called blazing a grating. Ruled gratings have imperfections that produce faint "ghost" diffraction orders that may raise the stray light level of a monochromator. A later photolithographic technique allows gratings to be created from a holographic interference pattern. Holographic gratings have sinusoidal grooves and so are not as bright, but have lower scattered light levels than blazed gratings. Almost all the gratings actually used in monochromators are carefully made replicas of ruled or holographic master gratings.