Programmable spatial light modulator and its application in fabricating optical components of polymer dispersed liquid crystal

A commercialized LcoS panel with the display capacity of 1024 x 768 was adopted to construct a spatial light modulator, which can be easily controlled by computer video signals to generate programmable photomasks. This photomask can be used to make various kinds of optical components based on polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) materials. A three-level Fresnel zone lens (FZL) of PDLC as an example was fabricated using this programmable photomask, whose diffraction efficiency ( DE) ranged between 61 % and 4 % as the applied electric field was varied. The maximum value of DE was in a good agreement with the theoretical predication for three-level Fresnel zone.