Scalable digital spatial light modulator-micromesh heterostructures for real time wave optical applications

For large-scale real time wave optical applications, we propose and demonstrate scalable simple digital spatial light modulator (SLM)-micromesh (μM) heterostructures, which fully harness ubiquitous well developed consumer information displays for real time large-scale SLMs and advanced patterning technologies for promoting the wave optical properties of SLMs of any size. Weakly diffractive projection mode large-scale SLMs with poor demultiplexity are transformed to highly diffractive mode heterostructures with fine patterned micromeshes as efficient demultiplexers or wave optical promoters. As a result, diffraction efficiency, diffraction angle, demultiplexity, multiplexity, reconstructed image quality and numbers of visibly reconstructed images largely increase even though the pixel pitches of the employed SLMs are many orders of magnitude larger than the wavelength of the illuminating light. The approach shown in this study can be applicable even for any sized weakly diffractive SLMs, and can simultaneously increase the effective spatial bandwidth and the physical dimension required for their wave optical applications. This can't be achieved by presently available SLMs alone.