Interference fringe

An interference fringe is a spatial band of enhanced or reduced wave intensity caused by a spatially varying phase difference. Uniform crossing plane waves produce straight parallel interference fringes; curved wavefronts can give curved bands. The interference fringes mark the relative wave phase, rather than the individual instantaneous wavefronts.

A fringe shift measures a change of relative phase between interfering waves in units of a full fringe spacing. A changing optical path difference $\Delta \ell$ gives a shift $\Delta N=\Delta \ell /\lambda$ for monochromatic light.

The distance between adjacent bright interference fringes, or between adjacent dark interference fringes, measured along a specified direction. For the symmetric crossing plane waves in wave interference, measured along $x$, $\Lambda =\lambda /(2\sin \theta )$. Bright-to-dark separation is $\Lambda /2$. As $\theta$ tends to zero the spacing diverges; at $\theta =0$ the phase difference is spatially constant and there are no periodic bands.