Beam shaping to improve holography techniques based on Spatial Light Modulators

Modern holographic techniques based on Spatial Light Modulators get serious benefits from providing uniform intensity distribution of a laser beam: more predictable and reliable operation, higher efficiency of laser energy usage, more simple mathematical description of diffraction transformations, etc. Conversion of Gaussian intensity distribution of TEM00 lasers to flattop one is successfully realized with refractive field mapping beam shapers like piShaper, which operational principle presumes transformation with high flatness of output wavefront, conserving of beam consistency, providing collimated output beam of low divergence, high transmittance, extended depth of field, negligible residual wave aberration, and achromatic design provides capability to work with several laser sources with different wavelengths simultaneously. Applying of these beam shapers brings serious benefits to the Spatial Light Modulator based techniques like Computer Generated Holography, Dot-Matrix mastering of security holograms, holographic data storage. This paper will describe some design basics of refractive beam shapers of the field mapping type and optical layouts of their applying in holographic systems. Examples of real implementations and experimental results will be presented as well.