Patent ID: 7527201

Claim:
A method of forming an optical pattern, comprising: generating reading light having a phase; feeding a phase pattern into a spatial light modulator while irradiating the spatial light modulator with the reading light to modulate the phase of the reading light according to the phase pattern; and Fourier-transforming the modulated reading light and focusing an image of the Fourier-transformed reading light on an output plane, the Fourier-transformed reading light containing 0-order light, and the 0-order light being blurred on the output plane, wherein the Fourier-transforming the modulated reading light and focusing an image of the Fourier-transformed reading light includes focusing an image of the 0-order light on a plane different from the output plane, thereby blurring the 0-order light on the output plane, and wherein the generating of the reading light includes providing a plane wave with a wavefront distortion, the method further comprising producing a phase pattern by adding a subsidiary phase pattern for compensating the wavefront distortion to a principal phase pattern corresponding to the optical pattern, prior to the modulating the phase of the reading light.