Separation of Rectangularly Symmetric Modes of Light With Fan-Out Elements

Abstract

We present a method to efficiently separate the rectangularly symmetric modes of light with two phase-only holograms. The holograms, known as fan-out elements, can split the input modes into multiple copies. A subsequent lens focuses these modes to different lateral positions. We use two spatial light modulators to create the desired optical elements. The separation of rectangularly symmetric modes, such as eigenmodes in rectangular waveguides and Hermite-Gaussian modes, is experimentally demonstrated.

Keywords

• Diffraction and gratings
• diffractive optics
• optical modes
• spatial light modulators