Abstract

In the past we have presented work on using nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LC-SLMs) as wavefront correctors for adaptive optics (a summary of which is described in ref. 1 and references therein). For example, at the last OSA/ESO meeting on adaptive optics in Garching (1995) we described a high-quality LC-SLM which had 69-direct driven pixels which was custom designed for adaptive optics applications2. One of the fundamental problems of this device, and of nematic LC-SLMs in general, is that they are inherently polarization sensitive, i.e. they can only phase modulate linearly polarized light. The use of a polarizer, and the associated wastage of light, is unacceptable for many applications, especially astronomy. In this paper we describe an LC-SLM which has been custom designed for adaptive optics and which can phase modulate unpolarized light.

© 1996 Optical Society of America