Edge-illuminated holograms, evanescent waves, and related optical phenomena

Revised interest in edge-illuminated holograms has resulted in new studies of optical phenomena which are not widely appreciated. The formation of edge-illuminated holograms requires a study of uncommon optical regimes and yields results which are not in keeping with common expectation. In this paper, we take another look at the edge-illumination problem but uncover some historically interesting work in the area of evanescent waves that provides us with unexpected new insights.