Abstract

The spatial light modulator (SIM) considered here consists of a thin incompressible viscous fluid layer and is addressed by an electron beam. As a consequence of the deposited charge image, the fluid surface is deformed by electrostatic stresses. For the incident light, this surface deformation represents a phase object causing phase modulation and thus diffraction. The conversion of this (invisible) phase modulation into a (visible) intensity modulation is achieved by means of a schlieren-optical imaging system. In previous publications [1,2], the transfer characteristics of the system for sinusoidal charge patterns, which lead to sinusoidal deformations because of the control-layer's linear transfer function, were extensively described; here, the transfer characteristics of the same system for spatially non-periodic structures are analyzed, and the resolution limits caused by the incompressibility of the SIM material and by the optical filtering are determined.

© 1988 Optical Society of America