Theory and design of the liquid crystal TV as an optical spatial phase modulator

An expression is derived for the complex amplitude transmittance of the liquid crystal TV (LCTV) and verified experimentally. It is shown that spatial phase modulation is realizable with good linearity, high transmission efficiency, and small intensity distortion. Although the commercial LCTV does not provide a sufficiently large dynamic range for continuous phase modulation, a dynamic range of 2'rr can be obtained by making appropriate changes in the design.