  A common issue encountered in photoemission electron sources used in electron
accelerators is distortion of the laser spot due to non ideal conditions at all
stages of the amplification. Such a laser spot at the cathode may produce
asymmetric charged beams that will result in degradation of the beam quality
due to space charge at early stages of acceleration and fail to optimally
utilize the cathode surface. In this note we study the possibility of using
microlens arrays to dramatically improve the transverse uniformity of the drive
laser pulse on UV photocathodes at both Fermilab Accelerator Science \&
Technology (FAST) facility and Argonne Wakefield Accelerator (AWA). In
particular, we discuss the experimental characterization of the homogeneity and
periodic patterned formation at the photocathode. Finally, we compare the
experimental results with the paraxial analysis, ray tracing and wavefront
propagation software.
