Optoelectronics: A of in
Optoelectronics: A of in
Optoelectronics: A of in
Optoelectronics
Optical isolator
Writing
beam
Reading
beam
GIass
Fig. 13.18
.{n incoherent to coherent light
conVerter.
beam. and it is affected everywhere in the same rvay by the modulation. Spatial light modulators do the same thing, but different parrs of the beam are difierently affected. A simple definition would be that a spatial light modulator is a device which gives a desired light distribution over a certain area. Thus, in principle. all programmable display devices may be regarded as spatial light modulators. including possibly a display at a railway station which announces the deparftrre of trains. Other examples are a cathode-ray tube in a television set or a liquid crystal display in a calculator. I shall discuss here the operation of only one of the modem spatial light modulators, which may also be called an incoherent-to-coherent light converter. Such a device is needed because coherent light is usually more suitable for further processing than incoherent light.
A schematic diagram of such a converter is shown in Fig. 13.18. ln the absence of input incoherent light from the left (the writing beam) the photoconductor does not conduct, and consequently there is a high voltage drop across the photoconductor and a low voltage across the liquid crystal (in practice the liquid crystal layer is much thinner than the photoconductor). The role of the liquid crystal is to transmit or to absorb the coherent light (reading light) coming from the right, depending on whether there is a voltage across ir or not. Thus, the intensity modulation of the writing beam is converted into the
intensity modulation of the reading beam. The optical isolator is usually in the form of a wide band dielectric mirror, which separates the writing and reading beams from each other.