Calibration of wavefront distortion in light modulator setup by Fourier analysis of multibeam interference

We present a method to calibrate wavefront distortion of the spatial light modulator setup by registering far-field images of several Gaussian beams diffracted off the modulator. The Fourier transform of resulting interference images reveals phase differences among typically five movable points on the modulator. Repeating this measurement yields a wavefront surface. Next, the amplitude efficiency is calibrated for registering the near-field image. For verification, we produced a superposition of seventh and eighth Bessel beams with different phase velocities and observed their interference.