Generation of Very Large Spot Arrays from a Single Laser Beam via Multiple Imaging with Binary Phase Gratings.
01 January 1988
A light efficient technique for generating very large (100x100+) arrays of uniform intensity spots of good contrast is proposed. One application of spot arrays such as these is as power supplies for optical logic devices in 2-dimensional optical computing/switching architectures. This spot generation technique utilizes binary phase gratings to both produce small spot arrays (~20x20) and also to multiply image these spot arrays. Since the gratings need only produce small numbers of spots, the design computation and fabrication constraints are simplified. An experimental demonstration of this technique for a 77x77 array is presented, as well as a discussion of potential limitations.