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Updated: Aug 27, 2025
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Published on: April 1, 2020
Optical Enhancement of Diffraction Efficiency of Texas Instruments Phase Light Modulator for Beam Steering in Near
Jiafan Guan1, Zhipeng Dong1, Xianyue Deng1
1James C. Wyant College of Optical Science, University of Arizona, 1630 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA.
Abstract:
Phase light modulator (PLM) by MEMS mirror array operating in a piston-mode motion enables a high-speed diffractive beam steering in a random-access and flexible manner that makes a lidar system more intelligent and adaptive. Diffraction efficiency is determined by the range of the piston motion of the MEMS array; consequently, a larger range of the piston motion is required for beam steering in infrared, such as for lidar. We demonstrated how the range of the piston motion is optically enhanced by a factor of two with a light-recycling optics based on Talbot self-imaging. The proposed optical architecture extends the usable range of the wavelength so that a MEMS-PLM designed for visible wavelength is applicable for a high-efficiency beam steering at an infrared wavelength of 1550 nm with an improved diffraction efficiency of 30%.
