Optical performance of the Grating Light Valve technology

The objective of this paper is to detail the Grating Light Valve(TM) (GLV(TM)) technology and demonstrate its flexibility in attaining high performance in a variety of optical systems and applications, concentrating particularly on its application toward projection display systems. The GLV technology represents a unique approach to fight modulation and offers remarkable performance in terms of contrast, efficiency, switching speed, and cost. The electro-mechanical response of the GLV device can be tuned through various design and operational modes to deliver desired performance for a given application. The design and fabrication of a linear array module of 1,088 GLV pixels is described. This module enables a Scanned Linear GLV Architecture for HDTV projection products. The flexibility of the GLV technology and the Scanned Linear GLV Architecture can support line sequential and frame sequential color, as well as 3-valve color systems. System level optical designs either include embedded scanners to emulate 2-D film source planes or external scanner elements for greater system simplicity. Results with actual projection display systems yield unparalleled on-screen performance, having uniformity greater than 99% corner-to-corner, high contrast, 10-bits of grayscale per color, and no visible pixel boundaries.