Determination of the phase- and polarization-changing properties of reflective spatial light modulators in one set-up

Abstract

The use of liquid crystal spatial light modulators in applications, require good characterization of phase, polarization and amplitude shifting properties. This report presents a new approach for simultaneously characterizing the depolarization and controlling the polarization properties of a reflective twisted nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC SLM). The SLM was set up as a part of a Michelson interferometer. The phase response was determined by using a piezo-electric actuator for phase stepping in the reference arm. During the polarization measurement the reference beam was removed and the polarization state of the input and output was determined by a polarization state generator (PSG) and a polarization state analyzer (PSA), each consisting of a polarizer and a quarter-wave plate. Hereby, both phase response and polarization control properties could be determined independently in the same measurement configuration simply by changing static polarization components. The systematic rotation of the quarter wave plates of the PSG and the PSA using stepper motors gives out-put data whose Fourier transform in terms of angular frequency components can be used to determine all the elements of the Mueller matrix. The Mueller matrix of a commercial SLM (Holoeye LC-2500) was determined for 17 evenly spaced voltage levels addressed to the SLM.