Accurate Phase Modulation Scheme in a Micropixel Liquid Crystal on Silicon with Multiple Polymer Walls

Abstract

In the micropixel liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS), the fringe electric field seriously affects the phase modulation accuracy of the adjacent pixels. In this paper, we propose an accurate phase modulation scheme in micropixel LCoS with multiple polymer walls. The multiple polymer walls are fabricated between aluminum (Al) electrodes to block the crosstalk of the fringe electric field between adjacent pixel arrays and reduce the change of liquid crystal (LC) molecular inclination angle. Therefore, the phase can be accurately controlled by the driving voltage. The change in LC molecular inclination angle in the edge of the driving Al electrode is simulated, and the improvement effect of the multiple polymer walls on light leakage is also analyzed. The simulation results show that the change in the LC molecular inclination angle and light leakage in the edge of the driving Al electrodes can be ignored. In addition, we also fabricate the multiple polymer walls in the LC cell, which are made of a photoresist on the oriented glass substrate. The experimental results indicate that the LC cell with multiple polymer walls shows good bright and dark states, which proves that the phase can be accurately adjusted.