Light efficiency of liquid crystal spatial light modulator using, for wavefront corrector in AO

Liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) has a series of attractive characteristics as a wavefront corrector in adaptive optics system such as compactness, high density integration, low cost and possibility of batch production. However it also suffers from several drawbacks such as low light efficiency. We present an analysis of the light efficiency of the phase by only using LC-SLM for wavefront corrector in AO system. The factors of polarization sensitive, pixel grid structure, phase quantization and limited phase stroke are discussed in theory. Simulation results are given based on a math model of a LC-SLM. The intensity variation results from pixel structure are measured. The light efficiency of the LC-SLM is tested for generating a series of Zernike aberrations. The effect of phase wrapping method is analyzed and tested. We demonstrate that the light efficiency reduces these factors. Experiment results from the use of the phase only liquid crystal spatial light modulator confirms these conclusions.