ALTERNATIVE METHODS FOR MULTIPLE LASER BEAMS GENERATION

The importance of simultaneous optical monitoring of many objects or several zones of the same object was already established. This paper reports two alternative methods for multiple laser beam generation using diffractive masks and phase modulation. They use linear blazed gratings combination LBGC or as quasi-periodic structures QPSs with parameters chosen in accordance with the desired multi-spots features. After masks are displayed on a spatial light modulator, the corresponding experimental diffraction patterns are analyzed in terms of diffracted intensity to show the advantages of each method. A code including sparse template was developed to obtain spots focused in different planes perpendicular to the optical axis. The theoretical aspects of the diffractive masks design, experimental configuration and results are presented and discussed.