Broadband optics for manipulating light beams and images

Abstract

The objective of the present invention is providing optical systems for controlling with propagation of light beams in lateral and angular space, and through optical apertures. Said light beams include laser beams as well as beams with wide spectrum of wavelengths and large divergence angles. Said optical systems are based on combination of diffractive waveplates with diffractive properties that can be controlled with the aid of external stimuli such as electrical fields, temperature, optical beams and mechanical means.

Description

CROSS REFERENCES[1] S. R. Nersisyan, N. V. Tabiryan, D. M. Steeves, B. R. Kimball, “Optical Axis Gratings in Liquid Crystals and their use for Polarization insensitive optical switching,” J. Nonlinear Opt. Phys. & Mat., 18, 1-47 (2009).[2] P. F. McManamon, P. J. Bos, M. J. Escuti, J. Heikenfeld, S. Serati, H. Xie, E. A. Watson, A Review of Phased Array Steering for Narrow-Band Electrooptical Systems, Proceedings of the IEEE, 97, pp. 1078-1096, 2009.[3] S. R. Nersisyan, N. V. Tabiryan, L. Hoke, D. M. Steeves, B. Kimball, Polarization insensitive imaging through polarization gratings, Optics Express, 17 (3), 1817-1830, 2009.[4] C. Oh, J. Kim, J. F. Muth, M. Escuti, A new beam steering concept: Riesley gratings, Proc. SPIE, vol. 7466, pp. 74660J1-J8, 2009.[5] J. C. Wyant, Rotating diffraction grating laser beam scanner, Applied Optics, 14, 1057-1058, 1975.U.S. Patent Documents7,319,566January 2008Prince et al.7,324,286January 2008Glebov et al.6,792,028September 2004Cook et al.3,721,486...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a set of DWs that can deflect almost all light using thin material layers for a wide range of wavelengths and angles. The DWs can be controlled to have specific optical properties, making them better suited for manipulating light and images. The optical system can also transmit the light and images using the DWs. The technical effects of this invention include improved optical manipulation capabilities and better transmission modulation of light and images.

Problems solved by technology

These opto-mechanical systems are complex, bulky and heavy for large area beams.

They are relatively slow and have limited range of angles that could be covered within given time period.

As a result, the overall transmission of these systems is reduced along with their radiation damage threshold, and their speed is limited by the liquid crystal spatial light modulators and variable retarders.

The problem with such systems is that phase gratings typically diffract light into multiple orders that need to be blocked along with the order beam.

Blazed gratings such as proposed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,792,028 to Cook et al., still exhibit a multitude of diffraction orders due to their discontinuous structure and do not improve considerably on angular selectivity and efficiency.

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