Large-area liquid crystal beam deflector with wide steering angle.

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Photonics
• Nanofabrication

Background:

• Electrically tunable beam deflectors face a trade-off between steering angle and active area size due to limited control channels.
• Achieving large steering angles typically requires smaller electrode pitches, which can reduce the overall active area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a beam deflector system that achieves both a large steering angle and a large active area.
• To overcome the inherent trade-off limitations in current electrically tunable beam deflector designs.

Main Methods:

• Implemented a 2 µm pitch indium tin oxide electrode using stepper lithography for a large steering angle.
• Developed a via-hole process to mitigate the reduction in active area caused by the small electrode pitch.

Main Results:

• Successfully created a beam deflector with 7200 controllable channels.
• Achieved a large active area of 14.4 mm × 14.4 mm.
• Demonstrated a maximum steering angle of 7.643° at a 532 nm wavelength.

Conclusions:

• The developed beam deflector effectively addresses the trade-off between steering angle and active area.
• This technology offers significant potential for various applications requiring precise beam manipulation.