My current understanding of Bragg's experiment is this:
A collimated X ray beam was shone to the surface of a metal. If we model a metal as an aggregate of parallel planes, one X ray reflects off one layer, then another X ray reflects off a layer that is deeper. The point is that as a result of this, these two rays become out of phase. It is my understanding that when this phase shift is a multiple of 2 pi, the two light rays interfere constructively to produce bright patches on a detector.
Now here are my confusions. In high school, constructive interference of EMR was explained as the phenomenon which occurs when two crests of waves (in phase) superposed to produce an even larger crest, the amplitude of which is the sum of the amplitude of its constituent waves. How should I interpret the bright patches as a result of constructive interference in terms of photons?
Also, it was never explained to me how the two X rays can actually interfere with each other. As in, when they reflect off the crystal lattice, the two rays are still parallel to each other right? (It's just that now their phases are different). If the two rays are always parallel and never intersect at some point, how can they interference/ produce the bright patches on the detector?
English is not my strong point, so please comment if the question doesn't make sense as currently worded.