CTP-Based Electrically-Addressed VLSI Liquid Crystal SLM

Phase I will develop a very high-contrast VLSI-addressed liquid crystal spatial light modulator for opto-electronic computing that uses a charge transfer plate to transfer modulation voltages from the VLSI circuit, while providing an optically flat substrate for liquid crystal fabrication. The Phase I will demonstrate: 1) flip-chip solder bump-bonding of MOSIS-fabricated VLSI circuitry onto CTPs; 2) assembly of a complete device consisting of a VLSI/CTP/LC sandwich; and 3) testing and characterization of these electrically-addressed devices. The advantages of this approach over the current non-CTP technology include: 1) higher contrast ratios, since the CTP is optically flat and a second liquid-crystal alignment layer can be deposited on it; 2) larger and more densely-packed arrays offering significantly increased parallelism at lower cost; 3) excellent spatial uniformity and the elimination of unwanted fixed pattern noise since the CTP provides an optically flat and smooth dielectric mirror surface for the liquid crystal cell; and 4) high optical readout efficiency because of the use of a highly reflective dielectric mirror surface on the CTP, and because the LC modulating element is optically isolated from the underlying driving circuitry. Commercial applications include parallel bistable optical memories, reconfigurable optical interconnects, visual displays, or, using more complex VLSI circuitry, "smart pixel" image processors or neural network circuit element.