Regular papers

Wavelength dependence of polarimetric and phase-shift characterization of a liquid crystal on silicon display

¹ Dept. Física, Univ. Autónoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
² Dept. Física, Ing. Sistemas y T. Señal, Univ. Alicante, 03080 Alicante, Spain
³ Dept. C. Materiales, Óptica y T. Electrónica, Univ. Miguel Hernández, Elche, Spain
⁴ Dept. Física, Univ. Buenos Aires, Argentina

^* angel.lizana@uab.cat

Received: 21 December 2007

Abstract

We present a full characterization of a liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) display, including a polarimetric analysis based on the Mueller-Stokes formalism, and a phase shift modulation calibration. Results for different wavelengths are compared. The goal of this work is two fold. On one side, previous papers dealing with the illumination wavelength 633 nm have shown that LCoS produce a non negligible amount of depolarized light. This may have a negative impact in certain applications. Here we want to establish how this depolarization varies with the wavelength. Diattenuation is also evaluated. On the other side, to use the LCoS as a spatial light modulator (SLM) we need to obtain optimal configurations enabling for phase-only or for amplitude-only modulation. Here we show how phase-only modulation is obtained, and how it evolves with the wavelength. In principle, the phase modulation depth increases and the energy throughput may also be increased for shorter wavelengths. However, these phase-only configurations may be partially degraded by the presence of depolarization at certain gray levels. Thus, the Mueller-Stokes formalism is necessary to get a full picture of the performance exhibited by the LCoS at each wavelength.