Variable Grating Mode Liquid Crystal Device for Optical Processing Computing
- 1 August 1981
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals
- Vol. 70 (1), 145-161
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00268948108073586
Abstract
Certain nematic liquid crystal mixtures are observed to form a “variable grating mode” (VGM) for appropriate choices of cell design and applied voltage. In this mode of operation, a phase grating in the plane of the cell arises from a periodic variation in the orientation of the liquid crystal director. The grating spatial frequency is observed to vary linearly as a function of the applied voltage above the formation threshold. Liquid crystal and device parameters characteristic of the observed variable grating mode are presented. Utilization of the VGM effect in a photo-conductively-addressed device is shown to provide an intensity-to-spatial frequency conversion. Applications of this unique type of optical transducer to arbitrary nonlinear optical processing problems are described. Results of level slicing experiments and implementation of optical logic functions are presented.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Optical logic with variable-grating-mode liquid-crystal devicesOptics Letters, 1980
- Real-time parallel optical analog-to-digital conversionOptics Letters, 1980
- Nonlinear optical processing with Fabry-Perot interferometers containing phase recording mediaApplied Optics, 1980
- Development Of An Optical Parallel Logic Device And A Half-Adder Circuit For Digital Optical ProcessingOptical Engineering, 1979
- Integrated optical half adder circuitApplied Optics, 1979
- Flexo-electric domains in liquid crystalsJournal de Physique, 1978
- Optical logarithmic filtering using inherent film nonlinearityApplied Optics, 1977
- Nonlinear optical processing: analysis and synthesisApplied Optics, 1977
- Non-monotonic non-linear image processing using halftone techniquesOptics Communications, 1975
- Nonlinear filtering in coherent optical systems through halftone screen processesApplied Optics, 1975