Design and fabrication of VLSI ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulators

Abstract

This paper discusses several design and fabrication issues surrounding VLSI, ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) spatial light modulators (SLMs). These SLMs consist of a VLSI CMOS backplane and FLC modulators as shown in Fig. (1). The FLC is sandwiched between the CMOS backplane and a sheet of glass coated with a transparent conductor. The design and fabrication issues that are described include: FLC material selection, alignment of the FLC, installation of the glass cover, and the design of photodetectors, amplifiers, and pad drivers. An electrically addressed dynamic RAM SLM with 64 × 64 pixels and three optically addressed SLMs with 32 × 32 pixels are described to discuss these issues.