Designing Talbot array illuminators with phase-space optics.

The problem of designing Talbot array illuminators is revisited in the context of phase-space optics. It is shown that for Talbot array illuminators with optimum compression ratio the construction of phase-only grating profiles can be simplified significantly by using phase-space representations of optical signals. Based on the Wigner distribution function a graphical procedure is derived for obtaining the complete design of the array generator for a given compression ratio. The application of phase-space optics to other classes of Talbot array illuminators, and its use as part of numerical optimization algorithms, is considered as well.