The Beam Steering Applications Of Polymer Network Liquid Crystal Devices

With the rapid development of 3D display,beam steering devices which are the key elements that transform a 2D images to a 3D images in many 3D display techniques have been widely studied.Gratings and lenses as basic steering devices have been widely used in the multiview 3D display.In some true 3D display method which can provide better images for example light field display,the steering devices need to be fast response,having high angular density and wide steering angle for time multiplexing.Conventional mechanical steering technologies are complex and inaccurate and cannot meet the demand of this days.Liquid crystals is an efficient electrically controlled optical phase modulation materials,having the advantages of light weight,low consumption and low cost and is suitable for fabricating beam steering devices used in 3D display.Polymer network liquid crystals(PNLC)is fast response materials for fast response steering applications.In this paper,we have fabricated PNLC gratings and lenses using holographic exposure which can reach fast response,low voltage and high spatial frequency at the same time.These devices has the potential to be widely used in 3D display.To make a multi angle steering devices with excellent performance,we proposed a design based on polarization gratings.Cascaded design can provide multi angles and because the switching is using a PNLC wave plate,the response time is fast.In conclusion,we have researched the PNLC devices in beam steering applications,design the proposal and fabricated the devices,achieving some significant results.