5.2: Grating Light Valve™ Technology: Update and Novel Applications

The Grating Light Valve (GLV™) technology offers a unique combination of extremely fast switching speed and the ability to withstand very high optical power densities. These and other attributes enable a novel architecture based on a scanned linear array of GLV pixels, which is described here for the first time. This architecture provides a number of advantages over conventional projection display systems that are based on either 2‐D spatial light modulators or scanned point systems. These advantages include scalability to very high spatial resolution, natural analog gamma response, high contrast and dynamic range, high optical efficiency, and low cost at production volumes.