DESIGN OF BINARY COMPUTER GENERATED HOLOGRAMS BY SIMULATED ANNEALING - OBSERVATION OF METASTABLE STATES

The simulated annealing algorithm allows optimal solutions to the binary hologram design problems to be located. When compared with suboptimal techniques such as direct binary search it requires a significantly longer optimization time. We compare simulated annealing and direct binary search for the design of fanout holograms. Over a large range of design parameters no significant improvement is obtained by the use of simulated annealing. When diffraction efficiencies are maximized however metastable states are observed and simulated annealing results in a 6.6% increase in diffraction efficiency and a tenfold reduction in reconstruction error.