Efficient generation of periodic and quasi-periodic non-diffractive optical fields with phase holograms

The superposition of multiple plane waves with appropriate propagation vectors generates a periodic or quasi-periodic non-diffractive optical field. We show that the Fourier spectrum of the phase modulation of this field is formed by two disjoint parts, one of which is proportional to the Fourier spectrum of the field itself. Based on this result we prove that the non-diffractive field can be generated, with remarkable high accuracy and efficiency, in a Fourier domain spatial filtering setup, using a synthetic phase hologram whose transmittance is the phase modulation of the field. In a couple of cases this result is presented analytically, and in other cases the proof is computational and experimental. (C) 011 Optical Society of America