High-frame-rate liquid crystal phase modulator for augmented reality displays

ABSTRACT

We optimise a new liquid crystal mixture with wide nematic range, high birefringence (Δn), high resistivity, moderate dielectric anisotropy (∆ε) and relatively low rotational viscosity for augmented reality display applications. High Δn and large Δε allow a thin cell gap (d ≈ 1.5 μm) to be employed in a reflective liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) device to achieve 2π phase change at 5 V and 2.87 ms average phase-to-phase response time at 40°C without complicated overdrive circuitry. Such a fast response time enables an LCoS panel to achieve 240 Hz frame rate for field sequential colour operation to avoid image flickering.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Spatial light modulators
• liquid crystals
• high birefringence
• AR display

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Yun-Han Lee, Dr. Haiwei Chen and Fangwang Gou for technical support and helpful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The Xi’an group would like to thank the Defense Industrial Technology Development Program of China (B0520132007, B1120132028), Joint Fund of Ministry of Education (6141A02022219), National Science Foundation Committee of China (21673134, 21543012) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (GK201704008) for financial support of this work. The UCF group is indebted to Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for the financial support, under grant no. FA9550-14-1-0279.