Light addressed liquid crystal light valve.

摘要

A light addressed liquid crystal light valve has two optically different states switchable therebetween by bias voltage in response to incident light. A ferroelectric liquid crystal layer (10; 110) is sandwitched by a pair of front and rear alignment layers (7a, 7b; 107a, 107b) to establish the two stable states in the ferroelectric liquid crystal layer. A front electrode layer is disposed on the front alignment layer. A dielectric mirror (6; 106) is disposed on the rear alignment layer (7a; 107a). A photoconductive layer (4; 104) is disposed on the dielectric mirror and responsive to the incident light incident from the rear face of light valve to increase its electroconductivity. A barrier metal layer (13, 105) is disposed on the photoconductive layer and forms a Schottky diode by combining with the photoconductive layer. A rear electrode is disposed on the barrier metal layer and is divided into a plurality of sub-electrodes to apply various bias voltage on the ferroelectric liquid crystal layer to thereby control a light writing sensitivity of the light valve according to the intensity distribution of a writing light.