Abstract

A one-dimensional, ultrasmall pixel liquid-crystal (LC) device is experimentally demonstrated. The device has a one-dimensional array of ten $1\mathrm{mm}$ long, interdigitated, reflective gold electrodes on a glass substrate and a common transparent electrode on the opposite substrate. The interdigitated electrodes are $2\mathrm{\mu m}$ wide, separated by a $1\mathrm{\mu m}$ interelectrode gap. Operating as a dynamic, reflective, $3\mathrm{\mu m}$ pitch diffractive grating, the device simulates the performance of a reflective, ultrasmall, $3\mathrm{\mu m}$ pixel, spatial light modulator (SLM). It was shown that, for a proper choice of LC cell thickness (less than $2\mathrm{\mu m}$), LC material (Merck’s BL006 high-birefringence mixture), and driving conditions, the device can attain relatively high diffraction efficiency, thus demonstrating the practical feasibility of a $3\mathrm{\mu m}$ pixel, LC SLM.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

Electrostatic and diffraction analysis of a liquid-crystal device utilizing fringing fields: applications to three-dimensional displays

Jeffrey H. Kulick, John M. Jarem, Robert G. Lindquist, Stephen T. Kowel, Mark W. Friends, and Thomas M. Leslie
Appl. Opt. 34(11) 1901-1922 (1995)

Experimental study of phase-step broadening by fringing fields in a three-electrode liquid-crystal cell

Eldad Bahat-Treidel, Boris Apter, and Uzi Efron
Appl. Opt. 44(15) 2989-2995 (2005)

On the fringing-field effect in liquid-crystal beam-steering devices

Boris Apter, Uzi Efron, and Eldad Bahat-Treidel
Appl. Opt. 43(1) 11-19 (2004)

Liquid crystal-on-silicon implementation of the partial pixel three-dimensional display architecture

G. P. Nordin, J. H. Kulick, R. G. Lindquist, P. J. Nasiatka, M. W. Jones, M. Friends, and S. T. Kowel
Appl. Opt. 34(19) 3756-3763 (1995)

Pixel-level fringing-effect model to describe the phase profile and diffraction efficiency of a liquid crystal on silicon device

Tianxin Lu, Mike Pivnenko, Brian Robertson, and Daping Chu
Appl. Opt. 54(19) 5903-5910 (2015)