title: Broadband beam shaping with harmonic diffractive optics.
abstract: We consider spatial shaping of broadband (either stationary or pulsed) spatially coherent light, comparing refractive, standard diffractive, and harmonic diffractive (modulo 2πM) elements. Considering frequency-integrated target profiles we show that, contrary to common belief, standard diffractive (M = 1) elements work reasonably well for, e.g., Gaussian femtosecond pulses and spatially coherent amplified-spontaneous-emission sources such as superluminescent diodes. It is also shown that harmonic elements with M ≥ 5 behave in essentially the same way as refractive elements and clearly outperform standard diffractive elements for highly broadband light.
authors.forename: Manisha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Jani
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tervo
authors.forename: Jari
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Turunen
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D008027:Light; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*