Application of liquid crystal (LC) devices for optoelectronic reconstruction of digitally stored holograms

Recent advances in high-resolution CCD detectors allow the development of the concept of digital holography that relies on the capture of 2D microinterferograms and their further numerical reconstruction. This approach is valid for optical metrology applications as it gives direct access to the phase and intensity of an object at the selected distance "d", However, it is not convienient for direct 3D-display purposes, This is the reason why the authors propose the optoelectronic reconstruction of a hologram that is digitally recorded and transferred to another optoelectronic medium. The application of LCD matrices and optically addressed liquid crystal cells as reconstruction media is discussed. Their applicability for computer-generated and optical holograms is tested by means of simple experiments. The problems connected with limited resolution of the recording (CCD) and reconstruction (LCD, DMD) devices are considered, The comparison of the results obtained by numerical and optoelectronic means is presented, together with a discussion of the limitations and further possibilities of these techniques. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.