Improvement of the switching frequency of a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator with optimal cell gap

In the application of a nematic liquid-crystal (LC) spatial light modulator, we derived the formula of retardation dynamic response of the device by solving the Erickson-Leslie equation. Then, the response time of the 2π phase change can be expressed as a function of the LC cell gap. The theoretical and experimental results all indicate that the response time of 2π first decreases and then increases with the LC cell gap increasing, and there is an optimal cell gap to obtain the shortest response time. Therefore, the method of optimizing the cell gap shows potential to improve the switching frequency for all type of nematic LC optical device with specific modulation quantity.