Abstract
Recently we proposed a novel polarimetric method, based on Stokes polarimetry, enabling the characterization of the linear retardance and its flicker amplitude in electro-optic devices behaving as variable linear retarders. In this work we apply extensively the technique to parallel-aligned liquid crystal on silicon devices (PA-LCoS) under the most typical working conditions. As a previous step we provide some experimental analysis to delimitate the robustness of the technique dealing with its repeatability and its reproducibility. Then we analyze the dependencies of retardance and flicker for different digital sequence formats and for a wide variety of working geometries.
Highlights
In recent years liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) displays have become the most attractive microdisplays for all sort of spatial light modulation applications, like in diffractive optics [1], optical storage [2], optical metrology [3], reconfigurable interconnects [4,5], or quantum optical computing [6], due to their very high spatial resolution and very high light efficiency [7,8]
There exists a good agreement between the average Stokes polarimetry method results and the ones related with instantaneous values measurement. This provides an alternative validation of the average Stokes polarimetry characterization technique proposed, which complements the validation already presented in [20], which was based on its capability to predict the Stokes vector for the state of polarization (SOP) reflected by the LCoS for arbitrary input SOPs
We remark that we have no temperature room control, which may affect the liquid crystal properties, so the small difference that we observe may be partly due to different temperature, together with the inherent uncertainty that we introduce in the orientation of the polarizer or in the alignment of the other various elements in the setup
Summary
In recent years liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) displays have become the most attractive microdisplays for all sort of spatial light modulation applications, like in diffractive optics [1], optical storage [2], optical metrology [3], reconfigurable interconnects [4,5], or quantum optical computing [6], due to their very high spatial resolution and very high light efficiency [7,8]. Appropriate techniques to obtain both retardance and flicker values have been demonstrated by our group [18] and by Ramirez et al [19], based respectively on the classical linear polarimeter and in a combination of linear and circular polarimeters. A more detailed characterization can be obtained by the average Stokes polarimetry method we recently proposed in [20] This technique in combination with a Mueller matrix based model allows us to predict the response of the device for every gray level and any kind of state of polarization (SOP) at the system entry. A first parameter to be evaluated in the performance of a digital backplane LCoS is the sequence format addressed This may affect the number of available quantization levels and the amount of flicker exhibited by the device [16]. A complete analysis of the performance of the PA-LCoS for a series of different sequence formats addressed and for various working geometries is undertaken
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