Design rules for fanout elements recorded as volume holograms

Abstract

Optical fanout elements split a single laser beam into a regular array of equally intense light spots in one- or two-dimensions. They are used in many applications of modern optics, such as parallel optical processing and fiber optic communication. This paper deals with the recording of efficient fanout elements as volume holograms. We have applied coupled wave theory to determine how efficiency and uniformity of the fanout depend on the recording conditions.