Digital Beam Deflectors Based Partly on Liquid Crystals

A digital beam deflector based partly on liquid crystals has been demonstrated as a prototype of a class of optical beam-steering devices that contain no mechanical actuators or solid moving parts. Such beam-steering devices could be useful in a variety of applications, including free-space optical communications, switching in fiber-optic communications, general optical switching, and optical scanning. Liquid crystals are of special interest as active materials in nonmechanical beam steerers and deflectors because of their structural flexibility, low operating voltages, and the relatively low costs of fabrication of devices that contain them.