Diffraction efficiency of stepped gratings using high phase-modulation spatial light modulator

Abstract

When encoding diffractive optical elements (DOE) onto a spatial light modulator (SLM), the diffraction efficiency can be reduced because of the pixel nature of the SLM. These effects have been studied previously with displays having the standard phase depth of 2 𝜋radians. In this work we explore such effects with devices having a phase-dynamic range as large as 10 𝜋. We analyze the quantization effects when displaying blazed phase diffraction gratings in such devices. Experimental results are included where the number of discrete steps per period of the grating as well as the phase modulation depth is varied. Experimental results agree with theory