Phase-modulating microstructures for highly integrated surface light modulators

US6259550A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Föderung der Wissenschaften e.V. · US

Inventors

• Ralf Gottfried-Gottfried · Dresden, DE
• Heinz Kück · Stuttgart, DE
• Detlef Kunze · Dresden, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 20, 1999
• Grant date: Jul 10, 2001
• Expiry date: Aug 20, 2019

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G02B26/06
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A structure for the phase modulation of light (32) incident upon said structure comprises a mirror (40), a deformable and transparent dielectric (36) disposed on the mirror (40), at least two electrodes (41; 42; 41a, 41b, 42; 50, 50') having one or several fixed potentials and being adapted to have one or more control voltages applied thereto for generating an electric field (58) in at least a partial region of said dielectric (36), thereby changing the optical path length of the light passing through said dielectric (36) with respect to a state of the dielectric (36) in which the electric field is not applied thereto. An arrangement of a plurality of such phase-modulating structures applied on a CMOS active matrix constitutes a very large scale integrated spatial light modulator.