Micro-optical phase modulators based on liquid crystal technology

Abstract

An optical phase modulator is an optical element used to control the phase of light. They have multiple applications, for example ophthalmological applications, tunable zooms, beam steering, correction of aberrations, astronomy, 3D vision applications, etc. The displays and photonics application group (GDAF) of Carlos III university of Madrid (UC3M) in collaboration with CEMDATIC of Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) have extended the knowledge in this field by the proposal of several advanced micro-optical phase modulators. These, obtain with simply topologies either common optical elements, e.g. microlenses for autostereoscopic devices [1], aberration controllers for rectangular micro-optical elements [2] and microlenses with reduced aberrations and tunable rotation [3], or singular optical elements, e.g. micro-axicon arrays [3] and tunable optical vortices [5].