Low voltage and high resolution phase modulator based on blue phase liquid crystals with external compact optical...

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Liquid crystal phase modulators are crucial for various applications.
• Improving response time and phase accuracy in these modulators is essential.
• Polymer stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) technology offers potential for enhanced performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a facile PS-BPLC phase modulator with low driving voltage and high resolution.
• To investigate the impact of fringing electric fields on modulator performance.
• To develop a protocol for liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) based phase modulators.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a facile PS-BPLC phase modulator.
• Utilizing a specific external compact optical system setup.
• Conducting accurate numerical modeling to analyze fringing electric field effects.

Main Results:

• Achieved a driving voltage of 26.09V for a 2π phase change at 532 nm.
• Demonstrated automatic compensation of wavefront distortion caused by fringing electric fields.
• Enabled accurate phase profile generation for fast response.

Conclusions:

• The proposed PS-BPLC phase modulator achieves low voltage and high resolution.
• Numerical modeling provides insights into fringing electric field effects for high-resolution modulators.
• This work presents a new protocol for LCOS-based fast-response, high-resolution phase modulators.