<title>Optical performance of the Grating Light Valve technology</title>

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to detail the Grating Light Valvemi (G1..vTNI) technology and demonstrate its flexibility in attaining high performance in a variety of optical systems and applications, concentrating particularly on its application toward projection display systems. The GLV technology represents a unique approach to light modulation and offers remarkable performance in terms of contrast, efficiency. switching speed, and cost. 'I'he electro-inechanical response of the GL\7 device can be tuned through various design and operational modes to deliver desired performance for a given application. The design and fabrication of a linear array module of 1,088 GI.V pixels is described. This module enables a Scanned Linear GLV Architecture for HDTV projection products. The flexibility of the GLV technology and the Scanned Linear GLV Architecture can support line sequential and frame sequential color, as well as 3-valve color systems. System level optical designs either include embedded scanners to emulate 2-D film source planes or external scanner elements for greater system simplicity. Results with actual projection display systems yield unparalleled on-screen performance, having uniformity greater than 99% corner-to-corner, high contrast, 10-bits of grayscale per color, and no visible pixel boundaries.

High-resolution laser-projection display system using a grating electromechanical system (GEMS)

“…The Scophony Home Receiver [1], demonstrated in 1939, was the first display system to make use of diffraction coupled with scanning methods to produce images. More recently, two distinctively different types of spatial light modulators containing arrays of electromechanical grating pixels were developed for display applications: viscoelastic membrane devices [2,3] and the grating light valves (GLV) of Silicon Light Machines [4,5]. Both of these modulator technologies use electrostatic actuation to produce surface deformations.…”

Image improvement in a laser projection display with a spatial light modulator with a deformable polymer

“…Several types of spatial light modulators containing arrays of electromechanical grating pixels have been developed for use in laser-based projection displays. Some of these modulators are viscoelastic-membrane devices, 1,2 grating light valves (GLV) from Silicon Light Machines, 3 and grating electromechanical systems (GEMS) from Kodak. 4 All of these employ electrostatic actuation to produce surface deformations.…”

67.2: Line-Scanned Laser Display Architectures Based on GEMS Technology: From Three-Lens Three-Chip Systems to Low-Cost Optically Efficient Trilinear Systems

“…High-speed linear-array light valves [1][2][3][4][5][6] have attracted growing interest because of their ability to produce very high resolution displays, while requiring a substantially smaller active area than a comparable area-array light valve. In fact, recent demonstrations of line-scanned laser projectors have shown that the line-scanned approach is capable of producing spectacular image quality [3,5].…”