Programmable agile beam steering based on a liquid crystal prism

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/20/11/114216

Abstract To meet the application need for agile precision beam steering, a novel liquid crystal prism device with a simple structure, convenient control, low cost and applicable performance is presented, and analysed theoretically and experimentally. The relationships between the optical path and the thickness of the liquid crystal cell under different voltages are investigated quantitatively by using a theoretical model. Analysis results show that the optical path profile of the liquid crystal prism has a quasi-linear slope and the standard deviation of the linear slope is less than 16 nm. The slope ratio can be changed by a voltage, which achieves the programmable beam steering and control. Practical liquid crystal prism devices are fabricated. Their deflection angles and wavefront profiles with different voltages are experimentally tested. The results are in good agreement with the simulated results. The results imply that the agile beam steering in a scope of 100 μrad with a micro-rad resolution is substantiated in the device. The two-dimensional beam steering is also achieved by cascading two liquid crystal prism devices.

Keywords: liquid crystal polarization devices beam steering optical scanner

Received: 02 April 2011
Revised: 23 May 2011
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:

42.70.Df

(Liquid crystals)

Fund: Project supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2009AA8042017) and the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Cite this article:

Xu Lin(徐林), Huang Zi-Qiang(黄子强), and Yang Ruo-Fu(杨若夫) Programmable agile beam steering based on a liquid crystal prism 2011 Chin. Phys. B 20 114216

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