Phase Compensation of the Non-Uniformity of the Liquid Crystal on Silicon Spatial Light Modulator at Pixel Level

Phase compensation is a critical step for the optical measuring system using spatial light modulator (SLM). The wavefront distortion from SLM is mainly caused by the phase modulation non-linearity and non-uniformity of SLM's physical structure and environmental conditions. A phase modulation characteristic calibration and compensation method for liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulator (LCoS-SLM) with a Twyman-Green interferometer is illustrated in this study. A method using two sequences of phase maps is proposed to calibrate the non-uniformity character over the whole aperture of LCoS-SLM at pixel level. A phase compensation matrix is calculated to correct the actual phase modulation of the LCoS-SLM and ensure that the designed wavefront could be achieved. Compared with previously known compensation methods, the proposed method could obtain the phase modulation characteristic curve of each pixel on the LCoS-SLM, rather than a mono look-up table (LUT) curve or multi-LUT curves corresponding to an array of blocks over the whole aperture of the LCoS-SLM. The experiment results show that the phase compensation precision could reach a peak-valley value of 0.061 lambda in wavefront and this method can be applied in generating freeform wave front for precise optical performance.

Automated summary

Phase compensation is a critical step for optical measuring systems using spatial light modulators. This study proposes a method for calibrating and compensating the phase modulation characteristics of liquid crystal silicon spatial light modulators, to ensure the designed wavefront can be achieved. Experimental results demonstrate that this method can achieve precise phase compensation for generating freeform wave fronts with accurate optical performance.