Simultaneous amplitude and phase modulation by a discrete phase-only filter.

We propose a simultaneous amplitude and phase modulation method by a discrete phase-only filter. The proposed amplitude-phase filter can be realized by a discrete phase modulation of the diffractive optical element as well as a continuous phase modulation of the liquid crystal spatial light modulator. The fabricated amplitude-phase filter that has the six phase modulation levels shows a transfer efficiency of 75% regardless of the polarization state of the incident light. By using the proposed amplitude-phase filter, we demonstrate a temporal waveform conversion from sech(2) to super-Gaussian, which requires both amplitude and phase modulations.