Characterization of an analog ferroelectric spatial light modulator: application to dynamic diffractive optical elements and optical information processing

Spatial light Modulators (SLM) are key devices for the development of optical information processors. Low cost twisted nematic liquid crystal (TN-LC) SLM's are widely available and their characteristics have been extensively studied. Beside the fact that they exhibit a coupled amplitude and phase modulation, their speed is limited to approximately the video frame rate. An alternative to TN-LC devices can be the use of analog ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) devices. These devices now commercially available produce a gray level pure amplitude modulation at typical frame rates of 1 kHz. In order to determine its coding capabilities and its limitations, the characterization of such a device, manufactured by Boulder Nonlinear Systems Inc., is presented in this paper. This SLM has a resolution of 512 by 512 pixels with a pitch of 15 μm and has a reflective VLSI backplane. The study of its potential applications for the display of dynamic diffractive optical elements and also as a component of an optical processor for pattern recognition will be followed by experimental results and comparisons with TNLC devices.

[1]  S Iwasa.  Optical processing: a near real-time coherent system using two Itek PROM devices. , 1976, Applied optics.

[2]  D Casasent,et al.  Photo-DKDP light valve in optical data processing. , 1979, Applied optics.

[3]  J. Tults,et al.  Liquid crystal matrix displays , 1971 .

[4]  W. E. Ross,et al.  Fundamental Characteristics Of The Litton Iron Garnet Magneto-Optic Spatial Light Modulator , 1983, Photonics West - Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering.

[5]  H Toyoda,et al.  Diffraction efficiency analysis of a parallel-aligned nematic-liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. , 1994, Applied optics.

[6]  Colin Soutar,et al.  Determination of the physical properties of an arbitrary twisted-nematic liquid crystal cell , 1994 .

[7]  J. M. de Bougrenet de la Tocnaye,et al.  Complex amplitude modulation by use of liquid-crystal spatial light modulators. , 1997, Applied optics.

[8]  J. Horner,et al.  Phase-only matched filtering. , 1984, Applied optics.

[9]  K. Yoshino,et al.  Colour Switching in Ferroelectric Smectic Liquid Crystal by Electric Field , 1979 .

[10]  D Casasent,et al.  Performance evaluation of spatial light modulators. , 1979, Applied optics.

[11]  Francis T. S. Yu,et al.  Optical Information Processing , 1982 .

[12]  Steven A. Serati,et al.  Complex phase/amplitude spatial light modulator advances and use in a multispectral optical correlator , 1997, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[13]  Francis T. S. Yu,et al.  Adaptive real-time pattern recognition using a liquid crystal TV based joint transform correlator. , 1987, Applied optics.

[14]  Continuous phase-only or amplitude light modulation using ferroelectric liquid crystals with fixed boundary orientations , 1994 .

[15]  Kipp Andon Bauchert,et al.  High-speed multilevel 512x512 spatial light modulator , 2000, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[16]  Tien-Hsin Chao,et al.  512x512 high-speed grayscale optical correlator , 2000, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[17]  Bahaa E. A. Saleh,et al.  Theory and design of the liquid crystal TV as an optical spatial phase modulator , 1990 .

[18]  D. Casasent,et al.  Minimum noise and correlation energy optical correlation filter. , 1992, Applied optics.

[19]  A. W. Lohmann,et al.  Character Recognition by Incoherent Spatial Filtering , 1965 .

[20]  D. R. Pape,et al.  Characteristics Of The Deformable Mirror Device For Optical Information Processing , 1983 .

[21]  L Bigué,et al.  Filter implementation technique for multicriteria characterization of coding domains in the joint transform correlator. , 1999, Applied optics.

[22]  Y Fainman,et al.  Computerized design and generation of space-variant holographic filters. 1: System design considerations and applications of space-variant filters to image processing. , 1988, Applied optics.

[23]  G. Knight,et al.  Interface devices and memory materials , 1981 .

[24]  J. Goodman,et al.  A technique for optically convolving two functions. , 1966, Applied optics.

[25]  B. Javidi,et al.  Joint transform image correlation using a binary spatial light modulator at the Fourier plane. , 1988, Applied optics.

[26]  Pierre Ambs,et al.  Dynamic computer-generated hologram displayed on a spatial light modulator for information processing , 1999, Other Conferences.

[27]  T. G. Mcdonald,et al.  Digital micromirror devices make projection displays , 1997 .

[28]  V Laude,et al.  Multicriteria characterization of coding domains with optimal Fourier spatial light modulator filters. , 1994, Applied optics.

[29]  Uzi Efron,et al.  Introduction to the feature on spatial light modulators and their applications. , 1994, Applied optics.

[30]  K. Yoshino,et al.  Electrical and Optical Properties of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals and Influence of Applied Pressure , 1981 .

[31]  Henry Stark,et al.  Applications of Optical Fourier Transforms , 1982 .

[32]  P Refregier.  Optimal trade-off filters for noise robustness, sharpness of the correlation peak, and Horner efficiency. , 1991, Optics letters.

[33]  Tomoaki Eiju,et al.  Optimization of twisted nematic liquid crystal panels for spatial light phase modulation , 1995 .

[34]  R. Juday.  Optimal realizable filters and the minimum Euclidean distance principle. , 1993, Applied optics.

[35]  B V Kumar,et al.  Tutorial survey of composite filter designs for optical correlators. , 1992, Applied optics.

[36]  Richard D. Juday,et al.  A philosophy for optical filter optimization , 1999, Other Conferences.

[37]  Anthony L. Lentine,et al.  Self-Electro-Optic Effect Devices for Optical Information Processing , 1994 .

[38]  T Hara,et al.  Spatial light modulators-research, development, and applications: introduction to the feature issue. , 1998, Applied optics.

[39]  Pierre Ambs,et al.  Optical implementation of a snake-based segmentation with an incoherent correlator , 2001, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[40]  H. B. Brown,et al.  Application Of The Liquid Crystal Light Valve To Real-Time Optical Data Processing , 1978 .

[41]  Pierre Ambs,et al.  Computerized Design And Generation Of Space-Variant Holographic Filter , 1988, Photonics West - Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering.

[42]  허건수,et al.  DLP(Digital Light Processing) , 2001 .

[43]  H K Liu,et al.  Real-time computer-generated hologram by means of liquid-crystal television spatial light modulator. , 1986, Optics letters.

[44]  F. Yu,et al.  Simple method for measuring phase modulation in liquid crystal televisions , 1994 .

[45]  O. Bryngdahl,et al.  Iterative Fourier-transform algorithm applied to computer holography , 1988 .

[46]  Pierre Ambs,et al.  Implementation of optimal trade-off correlation filters with an optimized resolution technique , 1999 .

[47]  B Javidi,et al.  Basic properties of nonlinear global filtering techniques and optimal discriminant solutions. , 1995, Applied optics.

[48]  S H Lee,et al.  Two-dimensional spatial light modulators fabricated in Si/PLZT. , 1990, Applied optics.

[49]  Philippe Réfrégier,et al.  Amplitude and phase coding measurements of a liquid crystal television , 1993 .

[50]  P. Réfrégier,et al.  Optical correlation: influence of the coding of the input image. , 1994, Applied optics.

[51]  Ignasi Labastida i Juan,et al.  Optical correlation by use of partial phase-only modulation with VGA liquid-crystal displays , 2000 .