Control of a free-space adaptive optical interconnect using a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator for beam steering

This paper is a revision of a paper presented at the SPIE Conference on Micro-Optics, VCSELs, and Photonic Interconnects, Apr. 2004, Strasbourg, France. The paper appears (unrefereed) in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5453. An adaptive beam position control system is reported, for use in alignment correction for free-space parallel optical interconnects at the board-to-board level. A liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) displaying binary phase gratings is used as a diffractive optical element to steer the beam. The design and implementation of a feedback controller for the SLM are presented, and shown in experimental results to completely correct for step disturbances within 1 to 2 sample periods. Extension of the system to tolerate random vibrations is considered, in terms of both the required SLM technology and the design of the control algorithms. The discussion highlights some of the trade-offs in choosing components when using this technology to correct for different levels of vibration.