New Light Valve Based On Photoinduced Space Charge Fields In BSO-Crystals

Abstract

The combined photoelectric and electrooptic properties of the BSOcrystal lead to a new possibility of realizing a real time spatial light modulator. Under certain geometrical conditions the crystal becomes birefringent in dependence on the local illuminance. Together with a suitable polarizer setup the crystal works as well as an incoherent to coherent converter as for contrast inversion.