Hu Lifa

Diffractive characteristics of the liquid crystal spatial light modulator

The liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC SLM) is very suitable for wavefront correction and optical testing and can produce a wavefront with large phase change and high accuracy. The LC SLM is composed of thousands of pixels and the pixel size and shape have effects on the diffractive characteristics of the LC SLM. This paper investigates the pixel effect on the phase of the wavefront with the scalar diffractive theory. The results show that the maximum optical path difference modulation is 41 μm to produce the paraboloid wavefront with the peak to valley accuracy better than λ/10. Effects of the mismatch between the pixel and the period, and black matrix on the diffraction efficiency of the LC SLM are also analysed with the Fresnel phase lens model. The ability of the LC SLM is discussed for optical testing and wavefront correction based on the calculated results. It shows that the LC SLM can be used as a wavefront corrector and a compensator.

Improvement of Response Performance of Liquid Crystal Optical Devices by using a Low Viscosity Component

Difluorooxymethylene-bridged (CF2O) liquid crystal (LC) with low viscosity is prepared and used as a fast response LC material. When the material is mixed with isothiocyanato LCs with high birefringence, the viscoelastic coefficient of the mixture decreases evidently and, accordingly, the response performance increases. While the concentration of CF2O LCs is about 7%, the LC mixture approximately maintains high birefringence and exhibits a fastest response performance that is 14% higher than that of pure isothiocyanato LCs. Therefore, the LC material and mixing method could find useful applications in optical devices.

Simulated human eye retina adaptive optics imaging system based on a liquid crystal on silicon device

In order to obtain a clear image of the retina of model eye, an adaptive optics system used to correct the wave-front error is introduced in this paper. The spatial light modulator that we use here is a liquid crystal on a silicon device instead of a conversional deformable mirror. A paper with carbon granule is used to simulate the retina of human eye. The pupil size of the model eye is adjustable (3-7 mm). A Shack–Hartman wave-front sensor is used to detect the wave-front aberration. With this construction, a value of peak-to-valley is achieved to be 0.086 λ, where λ is wavelength. The modulation transfer functions before and after corrections are compared. And the resolution of this system after correction (691p/m) is very close to the dirraction limit resolution. The carbon granule on the white paper which has a size of 4.7 μm is seen clearly. The size of the retina cell is between 4 and 10 mu;m. So this system has an ability to image the human eyes retina.

High closed loop correction accuracy with a liquid crystal wavefront corrector

We investigate the accurate control of a liquid crystal wavefront corrector. First, the Gamma correction technique is adopted to amend the nonlinear phase modulation. Then, the control method and wavefront reconstruction are considered. Lastly, a closed loop correction experiment is carried out and a high correction accuracy is obtained with peak to valley (PV) of 0.08? (? = 632.8 nm), the wavefront phase rms 0.015?, as well as the Strehl ratio of 0.99. The diffraction-limited resolution is achieved.