Abstract
This paper addresses the use of liquid crystal devices for electro-optic infrared laser beam steering, such as liquid crystal optical phased arrays (OPAs) and digital beam deflectors (DBDs). In these devices, voltages are synchronously applied to different liquid crystal pixels to steer light, either by diffraction and/or refraction using birefringent prisms. Dual frequency liquid crystals provide an order of magnitude higher speed as compared to conventional nematic liquid crystals, at the cost of more complex addressing algorithms and control circuits. In order to optimize the optical performance of a liquid crystal device, the control voltages must be calibrated. This procedure involves adjustment of the control voltages while monitoring the optical efficiency, and must be done for both steady-state phase levels as well as transitions between phase levels. Manual voltage calibration is unrealistically time consuming for multi-channel beam steering devices. Computer based calibration algorithms for dual frequency liquid crystal devices are discussed, and results are presented for both steady state and dynamic voltage calibration procedures.
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