DESIGN OF DIFFRACTIVE OPTICAL-ELEMENTS MODULATING POLARIZATION

We discuss polarizing kinoforms - diffractive optical elements that mo dulate only the polarization of incident light and form desired intens ity distributions at a pregiven distance. The surface microrelief of s uch optical elements has the form of a binary curvilinear diffraction grating with a constant period less than a wavelength. The energy effi ciency of the elements is equivalent to that of conventional multileve l phase kinoforms.