title: Interference effects in far-field diffractive optical elements.
abstract: The effects of interference between closely packed diffraction orders in the far field are studied for a number of different scalar-domain diffractive optical elements (DOE's). We demonstrate that there are specific order separations that minimize the observed degradation in the far-field output uniformity. Finally, a DOE that is designed to ensure that the order separation lies near one of these minima is compared with a more general design that produces an equivalent far-field output.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS United Kingdom. a.waddie@hw.ac.uk
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Waddie
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Taghizadeh