Abstract

Early work with the liquid-crystal television (LCTV) in image-processing applications are mostly making use of the polarization property of the device. Even when the LCTV is used as a binary phase-only spatial light modulator, as shown by Davis et al.,¹ the phase-modulation effect is actually obtained from the polarization-modulation property. However, besides the polarization-modulation property of a twisted nematic liquid crystal cell, there is also a birefringence effect inherently associated with the liquid-crystal cell.² Therefore, it is possible for the twisted-nematic-based LCTV to operate as a phase-only spatial light modulator. We have measured this continuous phase-modulation property of an LCTV and found that a phase-modulation angle of more than 2π rad is obtained.

© 1990 Optical Society of America