Abstract

This paper discusses several design and fabrication issues surrounding VLSI, ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) spatial light modulators (SLMs). These SLMs consist of a VLSI CMOS backplane and FLC modulators as shown in Fig. (1). The FLC is sandwiched between the CMOS backplane and a sheet of glass coated with a transparent conductor. The design and fabrication issues that are described include: FLC material selection, alignment of the FLC, installation of the glass cover, and the design of photodetectors, amplifiers, and pad drivers. An electrically addressed dynamic RAM SLM with 64 × 64 pixels and three optically addressed SLMs with 32 × 32 pixels are described to discuss these issues.

© 1991 Optical Society of America