Generating arbitrary laser beam shapes through phase-mapped designed beam splitting

We describe a method to generate high-definition arbitrary laser beam shapes and profiles useful to many applications, ranging from optical patterning and lithography to optical trapping of microscopic particles and ultracold atoms. The phase contrast between a binary grating and a targeted intensity distribution is encoded on a spatial light modulator to control light diffraction, producing very sharp, speckles-free, and smooth images. Besides simplicity, not requiring additional phase-plates, the method provides straightforward encoding of images onto phase-only masks by a direct pixel mapping, allowing simpler feedback schemes to correct and control light distributions and optical potentials in real-time.