Feasibility study of liquid crystal light valve on beam-shaping

A novel method of beam shaping by liquid crystal light valve (LCOS) is introduced in this paper. The incident phase modulation and spatial transmission properties of a shaped beam are studied, as well as the modulation characteristics of the liquid crystal light valve. There is no any additional phase modulation on the shaped beam when a LCOS is used as the beam shaper. A Gaussian beam has successfully been converted to a square flattop super-Gaussian beam by use of a LCOS. The results show that the LCOS of a liquid crystal projector working as a programmable spatial light amplitude modulation is feasible. An efficiency of 42% can be achieved. 