Liquid Crystal Phase Modulators For Time Phase Distortion Simulations

Abstract

Nematic liquid crystals have been used as phase retarders for adaptive optics for more than 10 years. Of the available options, liquid crystals phase modulators (LCPMs) have the advantages of low cost, reliability, compactness, low power, ease of controllability, a transmissive nature, and simple aperture scalability. A number of groups have investigated the use of LCPMs for adaptive wavefront control and demonstrated preliminary results.1-6 The current limitation for using these devices in atmospheric adaptive systems is their relatively slow response times. In this paper we present the results of turbulence simulation with a 127 element LCPM. The turbulence is statistically appropriate for the atmosphere in both temporal and spatial correlation, except for the low spatial and temporal frequency limitations of the LCPM. We address the limitations and potentialities of such modulators.