Analysis of temperature-induced liquid crystal phase control beam quality deterioration

Huang Fan; Wang Xiangru; He Xiaoxian; Zhang Mengxue; Wang Yingli; Guo Hongyang; Hu Jie; Ma Haotong

doi:10.12086/oee.2021.200463

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Huang F, Wang X R, He X X, et al. Analysis of temperature-induced liquid crystal phase control beam quality deterioration[J]. Opto-Electron Eng, 2021, 48(6): 200463. doi: 10.12086/oee.2021.200463

Citation:

Huang F, Wang X R, He X X, et al. Analysis of temperature-induced liquid crystal phase control beam quality deterioration[J]. Opto-Electron Eng, 2021, 48(6): 200463. doi: 10.12086/oee.2021.200463

Analysis of temperature-induced liquid crystal phase control beam quality deterioration

1.
School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, China
2.
Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy Sciences, Chengdu, Sichuan 610209, China

Fund Project: National Natural Science Foundation of China (61775026, 61871031), National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0307400), Central University Basic Research Fund (ZYGX2018J048), and Sichuan Province Science and Technology Plan (2020YFG0038)

More Information

^*Corresponding author: Wang Xiangru, E-mail: xiangruwang@uestc.edu.cn

Received Date 16 December 2020

Revised Date 18 April 2021

Published Date 01 June 2021

Abstract

Abstract

The liquid crystal optical phased array (LCOPA) is the core device of next-generation beam control technology. Improving its laser-induced damage threshold is one of the current research hot spots. Aiming at the scene of higher power laser incidence, the degradation degree of LCOPA phase modulation performance should be evaluated. Based on the traditional quarter-wave plate method, this paper realizes fast and direct measurement of the phase modulation of the liquid crystal to the incident laser. The verification test found that when the core temperature is 33 ℃, the corresponding maximum phase aberration is 3.6 rad. At the same time, based on the measured phase modulation results, this paper studies the deterioration process of the beam quality of the outgoing light. Analysis results show that the deterioration of beam quality is less than 20% when the core temperature of the liquid crystal phase shifter changes less than 10 ℃.
- liquid crystal optical phased array /
- high power laser /
- phase deterioration /
- beam quality

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References

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Overview

Overview

Overview: The liquid crystal optical phased array (LCOPA) is the core device of next-generation beam control technology. For beam deflection control, it has the advantages of high precision, fast response, low threshold voltage, small size, etc. Increasing its laser-induced damage threshold is one of the current research hot spots. Temperature distribution will be formed on the surface of the device, due to the absorption of the device when a high-power laser is illuminated. Since the liquid crystal is a temperature-sensitive optoelectronic material, its phase modulation to incident light will deteriorate due to temperature rise. To investigate the performance of LCOPA under high-power laser incidence, the relationship between temperature and phase modulation must be established. Aiming at the scene of high-power laser incidence, the degradation degree of LCOPA phase modulation performance should be evaluated. The traditional method is to calculate directly through theory, but the accurate liquid crystal characteristic parameters must be known first, and for unknown liquid crystals, this method is difficult. Based on the traditional quarter-wave plate method, this paper realizes fast and direct measurement of the phase modulation distribution of high-power incident light with a LCOPA, and then the temperature-voltage-phase correspondence of the liquid crystal is established.

The LCOPA is loaded with a specific periodic voltage value to make the ideal deflection angle of 0.5 mrad. At the same time, 4 kinds of one-dimensional Gaussian temperature distributions with different core temperatures (42 ℃, 39 ℃, 37 ℃, 33 ℃) are added to the device. The actual phase distribution of LCOPA can be obtained according to the above temperature-voltage-phase correspondence relationship. The result show that the phase distortion distribution under the influence of temperature has a Gaussian envelope related to the external temperature distribution, and there is also a sawtooth distribution related to the external voltage distribution on the Gaussian envelope. Meanwhile, the phase distortion reaches the maximum at the core temperature. Taking the center temperature of 33 ℃ as an example, the corresponding maximum distortion phase amount is 3.6 rad. Then, based on the phase modulation results at the above four temperatures, starting from the Helmholtz equation and taking the efficiency ratio in the barrel as the criterion, the quality deterioration process of the beam within 1000 m from the device is studied. The MATLAB simulation results show that as the transmission distance increases, the beam quality of the emitted light slowly decreases and finally stabilizes. The deterioration of beam quality is less than 20% when the core temperature of the liquid crystal phase shifter changes less than 10 ℃.