Complex wave front manipulation using liquid crystal televisions and computer-generated holograms

Abstract

We demonstrate a spatial light modulator (SLM) that provides a complex wave front manipulation using commercially available liquid-crystal televisions (LCTV). A simple wedged shear plate interferometer is proposed for in situ measurement of the phase modulation and the operating curve of this SLM. We obtain the continuous complex amplitude modulation using two cascaded LCTV's. A look-up table encoding method is proposed for compensating effects of the phase amplitude coupling and the nonlinearity in the two LCTV's. A complex amplitude 2D grating is used for testing the optical complex amplitude modulation.