An imaging characteristic analysis is made on a phase varying artificial diffuser, which is to be used in a Fourier-transform hologram recording optics.
The analysis shows that, in a phase plate optics, there is a close relation between a mechanical tolerance characteristic and an optical band-limit characteristic, and that the effect of pattern noise, which is generated by exceeding mechanical tolerance or by severely limiting the hologram area, can be minimized, provided that the following conditions are satisfied : The artificial phase diffuser must have smooth and continuous phase changes both in real space and in the first and the second derivative spaces.
It is also clarified that this smooth-phase-change diffuser has a favorable spectral distribution, i. e., the coherent light, after passing through the diffuser, is properly scattered in a spectral plane.
These results are experimentaly verified.
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