Liquid Crystal Technology for Adaptive Optics: an Update

The idea of using liquid crystal (LC) devices as an adaptive optics component has been proposed by several authors. In recent years a vigorous research effort has been carried out, and it is still flourishing, in several countries. Mainly the research and experimental work has been concentrated in the USA, U.K. and Russia. There are several reasons why liquid crystals may represent a valid alternative to the traditional deformable mirror technology that has been used for the past two decades or so. The main attractiveness of LC resides in the cost. Current deformable mirror technology has a range of price going from $2K to $15K per channel. LC technology promises to be at least a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper. Other reasons are connected with reliability, low power consumption and with a huge technological momentum based on a wide variety of industrial applications. In this paper we present some preliminary characterizations of a new, large format device. Such devices have the potential for extremely high-resolution wave-front control due to the over 10,000 corrective elements. The characterization of the device, so far, consists of measurements of the overall optical quality and of the phase control relationship. Presented at the SPIE/IS&T Symposium on Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology held in Santa Clara, CA on 20-24 Jan 2003. Published in Liquid Crystal Materials, Devices, and Applications IX, SPIE Conference Proceedings, v5003, p187-192, 2003. The orginal document contains color images.