Liquid Crystal Devices for Beam Steering Applications

Advances in liquid crystal beam steering

A space platform for optical communications could benefit from nonmechanical beam steering in which no inertia is used to redirect the laser communications link. This benefit is to come in the form of compact, low-power, lightweight optical phased arrays that provide greater flexibility in their steering capability. Non-mechanical beam steering eliminates the need for massive optomechanical com...

Liquid crystal spatial light modulator for multispot beam steering

This paper was published in SPIE Proceedings, Volume 5160 and is made available as an electronic reprint with permission of SPIE. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systemic or multiple reproduction, distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the...

Nematic Liquid Crystal Spatial Light Modulators for Laser Beam Steering

Liquid Crystal Optical Phase Modulators for Beam Steering

Beamsteering using liquid crystals can be achieved with refractive or diffractive implementations. The common thread in these various structures is that the liquid crystal is employed as an optical phase modulator. Either nematic or smectic liquid crystal phases can be used to shift the phase of light and steer an optical beam. Various liquid crystal optical phase modulating schemes will be des...

Fast Switching Dual Frequency Liquid Crystal Optical Retarder for Beam Steering Applications

We demonstrate a fast optical modulator capable of switching large amount of optical retardation (a few microns) in less than 1 ms. The result is achieved by employing a dual frequency nematic in cells with high pre-tilt alignment and by providing a special addressing scheme that features amplitude and frequency modulated voltage. We explore the effect of time delay and dielectric heating in pr...