In situ real-time beam monitoring with dielectric meta-holograms

A novel approach for performing in situ and real-time beam monitoring, based on dielectric meta-hologram, is proposed and demonstrated. The ultrathin dielectric metahologram projects a portion of the beam power onto a screen to provide a visual indicator of the spatial intensity distribution of a Gaussian laser beam, as well as its waist position along the optical axis. Specifically, we demonstrate simple monitoring of the spot size, astigmatism, lateral position, and position along the optical axis of the beam. Good agreement is found with both theory and conventional knife-edge beam profiler measurements. This in situ beam monitoring approach could provide a highly useful tool for numerous optical applications.