Abstract
I present a general approach for designing Talbot array illuminators (TAIL's). Beyond the scope of conventional TAIL's, in which each period of the replay field contains only one bright spot,I examine complex configurations ensuring various topologies of the output spots. The synthesis problem is stated in terms of constraints and degrees of freedom. Both the one-dimensional and two-dimensional cases are treated, and an example of constraints, namely the binarization of the TAIL, is discussed. For illustration, an application is proposed in which I consider a dynamic multilayer interconnection architecture involving a programmable TAIL. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.