Recent Advances and Applications of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Spatial Light Modulators

Abstract

Optical computing systems offer increased information processing throughput rates by taking advantage of parallel optical architectures. The fundamental component in these architectures is a device which can modulate two-dimensional optical data. These devices, known as spatial light modulators (SLMs) have many applications including input/output data displays, spatial and matched filtering, incoherent- coherent light converters, optical crossbar switches, optical interconnection networks, and neurocomputing. The ideal system requirements placed on SLMs include high resolution (100 lp/mm), 1000 x 1000 pixels, megahertz frame rate, 100 grey levels, 1000:1 contrast ratio, and low cost [1]. An operating characteristic which often prevents SLM's from reaching these goals is device power dissipation [2]. Furthermore, devices which have large commercial markets have a better chance of meeting these systems requirements. In this paper we will discuss a new class of materials, ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs), that potentially can meet all the above system requirements.