In this paper we analyze the use of phase plates to obtain
homogeneous laser intensity profiles. We studied the dependence of
intensity distribution on phase plates characteristics, we
obtained analytical solution for the intensity profile in the
focal plane for plane waves and developed a numerical simulator to
calculate the intensity distribution with a generic initial beam
and at any propagation plane. We defined criteria to evaluate the
quality of profiles produced by different phase plates. Finally we
compared experimental results obtained at the Max-Planck Institut
für Quantenoptik of Garching with our numerical simulations
