Hybrid experimental-computational approach for wavefront modulation with digital backplane liquid crystal devices

Abstract

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are ubiquitous in many areas in Optics and Photonics, enabling precise control at the local level of the optical properties of light wavefronts. Among them, digital backplane liquid crystal on silicon devices (LCoS) are most widely use, enabling the modulation of the amplitude, phase or state of polarization (SoP). We show a hybrid experimental-computational approach that enables a full prediction of the resulting modulation exhibited by these devices as a function of any voltage applied and across the whole visible spectrum. A reduced amount of polarimetric measurements samples the parametric space onto which the modulation is dependent. Then, an efficient interpolation approach is demonstrated across the rest of the parametric space. Both simulated and experimental results for the phase and retardance modulation are shown, demonstrating the goodness of our proposal.