Designing an Arbitrary Array Beam Splitter in VirtualLab Fusion

This tutorial walks you through the complete design workflow for a beam splitter that generates spots at the apexes of a regular hexagon plus one at the center. We employ the Arbitrary Array Beam Splitter Session Editor in VirtualLab Fusion to achieve this. The Session Editor guides you through defining a target intensity pattern, configuring the optical system, setting merit functions and then provides configured documents for IFTA (Iterative Fourier Transform Algorithm) design and analysis as well as an Optical Setup for simulation.

The workflow consists of four main steps:

1. Prepare the target pattern – prepare the beam splitter orders and the required corresponding weights.
2. Configure the Session Editor – set up the source, optical system configuration, and Diffractive Optical Element parameters.
3. Run the IFTA design and multiple runs – execute a single IFTA design, then generate and filter multiple design candidates.
4. Simulate the optical system – adjust engine settings and evaluate the final irradiance pattern.

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