<title>Ferroelectric liquid crystal SLMs: from prototypes to products</title>

Abstract

The road from a new technology's proof-of-principle prototype to commercially successful products always seems to be more challenging, more expensive, and longer than its inventors had imagined. Displaytech built its first experimental FLC-VLSI SLMs in 1989, began ramping up its efforts to commercialize FLC-VLSI displays around 1995, and now is building more than 100,000 displays per month with its manufacturing partner Miyota. Here we review the motivation for using FLC-VLSI technology and trace the developments that were necessary for its commercialization. We discuss problems that had to be overcome in FLC materials, device design, manufacturing, applications, product definition, and systems support in order to develop the technology and to lower barriers to its adoption by customers. The principal focus here is on technical challenges encountered in manufacturing and in FLC materials development that had to be met to go from hand-built prototypes to mass production. We also review future potential markets other than displays and describe some of our work on experimental FLC-VLSI devices that addresses those opportunities. Examples include holographic optical data storage, 3D projection, optical image processing, smart-pixel SLMs, and high-speed computer interfaces needed to support high frame rate SLMs.

Helix-Free Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals: Electro Optics and Possible Applications

“…It shifts to both high and low temperatures, and for the HF-32C composition, the time τ0.1-0.9 at the maximum possible light modulation frequency of 7 kHz is from 10 to 52 °C. The experimental results show that new helix-free FLCs are very promising materials for the next generation of LC displays, especially for fast displays using FLC on Silicon and 3D technologies, as well as the progressive Field Sequential Colors (FSC) technique, which allows us to form brighter images (because of the absence of RGB filters) by a display with a 3-times-smaller number of pixels [26,27]. Note that the halftone modulation characteristic in such a uniquely wide frequency range is realized only on the basis of the physical properties of new FLC materials.…”

“…It shifts to both high and low temperatures, and for the HF-32C composition, the time τ0.1-0.9 at the maximum possible light modulation frequency of 7 kHz is from 10 to 52 °C. The experimental results show that new helix-free FLCs are very promising materials for the next generation of LC displays, especially for fast displays using FLC on Silicon and 3D technologies, as well as the progressive Field Sequential Colors (FSC) technique, which allows us to form brighter images (because of the absence of RGB filters) by a display with a 3-times-smaller number of pixels [26,27]. The experimental results show that new helix-free FLCs are very promising materials for the next generation of LC displays, especially for fast displays using FLC on Silicon and 3D technologies, as well as the progressive Field Sequential Colors (FSC) technique, which allows us to form brighter images (because of the absence of RGB filters) by a display with a 3-times-smaller number of pixels [26,27].…”

<title>Advances in liquid crystal spatial light modulators</title>

“…FLC modulators are touted as being orders of magnitude faster than NLC's. 7 Actually, this claim is only valid if the comparison involves LC modulators driven by low-voltage signals. If voltage level is not limited, then a variety of NLC modulators exist which have rise and fall times that rival the FLC modulators.…”