W. Zhou
Semergytech, Inc., Texas, United States
Keywords: Spatial light modulators, directed energy, Lidar, laser communications, high power lasers, semiconductors
Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are widely used for optical beam compensation associated with air turbulence and adaptive optics in imaging and sensing applications. However, one of the limitations of the current SLMs are typically slow, with switching/modulation speed in the order of kHz to low MHz regime. Based on semiconductor photonic crystal cavities, fully 2pi phase tuning is possible with speed of GHz and more. We will present the techology advances in high speed SLMs based on the semiconductor photonic crystal slabs. Related publications: 1. Y. Shuai, D. Zhao, C. Stambaugh, N. Zimmerman, J. Lawall, and W. Zhou, “Coupled Bi-layer Photonic Crystal Slab Electro-optic Spatial Light Modulators”, IEEE Photon. J. 9, 7101411 (2017). 2. W. Zhou and S. Fan, Photonic Crystal Metasurface Optoelectronics: Academic Press, 2019. 3. M. Pan, A. Liu, Z. Liu, and W. Zhou, “High-speed tunable optical absorber based on a coupled photonic crystal slab and monolayer graphene structure”, Opt. Express 30, 47612 (2022). 4. M. Pan, Z. Liu, A. Kalapala, Y. Chen, Y. Sun, and W. Zhou, "Complete 2π phase control by photonic crystal slabs," Opt. Express 29, 40795-40804 (2021) 5. W. Zhou, US patent pending (2022).