Two-Dimensional Electrically-Addressed Si/PLZT Spatial Light Modulator Arrays

Abstract

In the last few years extensive efforts have gone into the development of spatial light modulators ( SLMs) for the realization of massively parallel optical processors[1,2]. The silicon-PLZT SLM approach is one of the promising approaches and has the potential of combining the computational power of silicon and the communication power of optical interconnects. By using the third direction normal to the processing plane, the Si/PLZT approach allows the optical interconnects to provide the advantages of high speed parallel and global interconnections to simple silicon electronic circuits performing local computational operations. In this paper, we report on the successful fabrication of two-dimensional electrical matrix-addressed SLMs by integrating silicon MOSFETs and electro-optic PLZT light modulators on the same substrate (PLZT) using a simultaneous laser crystallization and diffusion technique[3]. When fully developed into large arrays this Si/PLZT electrically addressed SLM (ESLM) can be used efficiently as an input device to optical processors, transducing electrical information into optical form while being fully compatible in data format with the optically addressed Si/PLZT SLMs presently under development at UCSD. In what follows we describe the theory and design consideration for the Si/PLZT ESLM, detail the experimental techniques used and discuss the results obtained.