Abstract

Liquid crystals are frequently used as active diffractive optical elements [1,2]. These materials offer several advantages, including rapid response [3], large aperture, and low cost. The simplest liquid crystal diffractive structure is a one dimensional grating comprised of a linear array of electrodes [4], Application of different voltages along the electrode array results in a multi-level phase structure which may take the form of a blazed grating or phased array. For such devices, the phase front across the grating aperture is constructed from periodic and quantized phase steps up to 2π.

© 1996 Optical Society of America