Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators

Alpgiray Keskin; Gamze Kaya; Sündüz Gökçen; Necati Kaya

doi:10.28979/jarnas.1900810

Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators

Abstract

Optical systems that rely on precise phase modulation commonly use Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs), and the optical fidelity of applications such as beam shaping, adaptive optics, and holography depends on precise phase calibration. In this work, we compare two primary phase calibration techniques for LCoS SLM setups: a Michelson interferometer-based method and a diffraction-based self-referenced interferometric method. The Michelson interferometric technique measures phase shifts directly via fringe pattern intensity analysis, offering high accuracy in characterizing the global phase response, although its practical downside is the requirement for a complicated and vibration-sensitive setup. In contrast, the diffraction-based interferometric technique, which uses a binary phase grating to generate an interfering beam, provides a faster assessment via a simpler and more robust calibration process, albeit with slightly lower accuracy. While the Michelson interferometric technique offers higher precision for mapping the average phase response, the diffraction-based calibration method yields results more quickly and may be a better choice for applications requiring rapid data acquisition or operation in less stable environments. The unique value of this study lies in its direct, side-by-side experimental comparison of these two foundational calibration techniques using the same device and consistent methodologies, evaluating them across key performance areas. Therefore, this study helps inform the selection between the two techniques by providing justification beyond absolute accuracy, considering factors like complexity, robustness, and the experimental setting.

Keywords

Supporting Institution

This study was supported by C¸ anakkale Onsekiz Mart University Scientific Research Coordination Unit Project numbers: FDK-2024-4751 and FDK-2024-4737, T¨UB˙ITAK 1001 The Scientific and Technological Research Projects Funding Program Project number: 122F012, and T¨UB˙ITAK 2211-C National PhD Scholarship Program for A.K. and S.G. in the Priority Fields in Science and Technology.

Ethical Statement

No approval from the Board of Ethics is required.

References

[1] W. P. Bleha Jr., L. A. Lei, Advances in liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator technology, Display Technologies and Applications for Defense, Security, and Avionics VII 8736, Baltimore, 2013, pp. 47–54.
[2] G. Finke, M. Kujawi´nska, T. Kozacki, Visual perception in multi SLM holographic displays, Applied Optics 54 (12) (2015) 3560–3568.
[3] C. Li, M. Xia, Q. Mu, B. Jiang, L. Xuan, Z. Cao, High-precision open-loop adaptive optics system based on LC-SLM, Optics Express 17 (13) (2009) 10774–10781.
[4] X. Shen, J. M. Kahn, M. A. Horowitz, Compensation for multimode fiber dispersion by adaptive optics, Optics Letters 30 (22) (2005) 2985–2987.
[5] C. Wang, Q. Fu, X. Dun, W. Heidrich, Megapixel adaptive optics: towards correcting large-scale distortions in computational cameras, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 37 (4) (2018) 1–12.
[6] J. St¨ohr, M. G. Samant, A. Cossy-Favre, J. Diaz, Y. Momoi, S. Odahara, T. Nagata, Microscopic origin of liquid crystal alignment on rubbed polymer surfaces, Macromolecules 31 (6) (1998) 1942–1946.
[7] Z. Hong, L. Zhu, S. Fu, M. Tang, P. Shum, D. Liu, A robust and fast polarimeter based on spatial phase modulation of liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS), Asia Communications and Photonics Conference, Optica Publishing Group, Hong Kong, 2015, pp. AM1A–3.
[8] W. Osten, C. Kohler, J. Liesener, Evaluation and application of spatial light modulators for optical metrology, Optica Pura y Aplicada 38 (3) (2005) 71–81.

[9] K. Murphy, D. Burke, N. Devaney, C. Dainty, Experimental detection of optical vortices with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, Optics Express 18 (15) (2010) 15448–15460.
[10] B.-Y. Wang, L. Han, Y. Yang, Q.-Y. Yue, C.-S. Guo, Wavefront sensing based on a spatial light modulator and incremental binary random sampling, Optics Letters 42 (3) (2017) 603–606.
[11] W. A. Crossland, T. D. Wilkinson, I. G. Manolis, M. M. Redmond, A. B. Davey, Telecommunications applications of LCOS devices, Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals 375 (1) (2002) 1–13.
[12] B. Jack, J. Leach, H. Ritsch, S. M. Barnett, M. J. Padgett, S. Franke-Arnold, Precise quantum tomography of photon pairs with entangled orbital angular momentum, New Journal of Physics 11 (10) (2009) 103024.
[13] H. J. Coufal, D. Psaltis, G. T. Sincerbox, Holographic Data Storage, Vol. 8 of Springer Series in Optical Sciences, Springer, 2000.
[14] M. Gu, X. Li, Y. Cao, Optical storage arrays: a perspective for future big data storage, Light: Science & Applications 3 (2014) e177.
[15] M. Sol´ıs-Prosser, A. Arias, J. J. M. Varga, L. Reb´on, S. Ledesma, C. Iemmi, L. Neves, Preparing arbitrary pure states of spatial qudits with a single phase-only spatial light modulator, Optics Letters 38 (22) (2013) 4762–4765.
[16] S. Orlov, V. Vosylius, P. Gotovski, A. Grabusovas, J. Baltrukonis, T. Gertus, Vector beams with parabolic and elliptic cross-sections for laser material processing applications, JLMN-Journal of Laser Micro/Nanoengineering 13 (3) (2018).
[17] M. Schmidt, K. Cvecek, J. Duflou, F. Vollertsen, C. B. Arnold, M. J. Matthews, Dynamic beam shaping—Improving laser materials processing via feature synchronous energy coupling, CIRP Annals 73 (2) (2024) 533–559.
[18] L. Hu, L. Xuan, Y. Liu, Z. Cao, D. Li, Q. Mu, Phase-only liquid crystal spatial light modulator for wavefront correction with high precision, Optics Express 12 (26) (2004) 6403–6409.
[19] Z. Chen, T. Zeng, B. Qian, J. Ding, Complete shaping of optical vector beams, Optics Express 23 (14) (2015) 17701–17710.
[20] L. Burger, I. C. Litvin, S. Ngcobo, A. Forbes, Implementation of a spatial light modulator for intracavity beam shaping, Journal of Optics 17 (1) (2014) 015604.
[21] D. Huang, W. Fan, H. Cheng, G. Xia, L. Pei, X. Li, Z. Lin, Wavefront control of laser beam using optically addressed liquid crystal modulator, High Power Laser Science and Engineering 6 (2018) e20.
[22] L. M. Hirvonen, K. Wicker, O. Mandula, R. Heintzmann, Structured illumination microscopy of a living cell, European Biophysics Journal 38 (6) (2009) 807–812.
[23] R. Heintzmann, Saturated patterned excitation microscopy with two-dimensional excitation patterns, Micron 34 (6-7) (2003) 283–291.
[24] C. Maurer, A. Jesacher, S. Bernet, M. Ritsch-Marte, What spatial light modulators can do for optical microscopy, Laser & Photonics Reviews 5 (1) (2011) 81–101.
[25] E. Auksorius, B. R. Boruah, C. Dunsby, P. M. Lanigan, G. Kennedy, M. A. Neil, P. M. French, Stimulated emission depletion microscopy with a supercontinuum source and fluorescence lifetime imaging, Optics Letters 33 (2) (2008) 113–115.
[26] A. Maimone, A. Georgiou, J. S. Kollin, Holographic near-eye displays for virtual and augmented reality, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 36 (4) (2017) 85.
[27] E. R. Dufresne, D. G. Grier, Optical tweezer arrays and optical substrates created with diffractive optics, Review of Scientific Instruments 69 (5) (1998) 1974–1977.
[28] M. Reicherter, T. Haist, E. U. Wagemann, H. J. Tiziani, Optical particle trapping with computergenerated holograms written on a liquid-crystal display, Optics Letters 24 (9) (1999) 608–610.
[29] T. Meeser, C. von Kopylow, C. Falldorf, Advanced digital lensless Fourier holography by means of a spatial light modulator, 2010 3DTV-Conference: The True Vision-Capture, Transmission and Display of 3D Video, IEEE, Tampere, 2010, pp. 1–4.
[30] T. Baumbach, W. Osten, C. von Kopylow, W. J¨uptner, Remote metrology by comparative digital holography, Applied Optics 45 (5) (2006) 925–934.
[31] X. Zhang, K. Li, Error analysis in LCoS phase uniformity measurement with classical polarimetric method for holographic display applications, SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers 54 (S1) (2023) 426–433.
[32] S. T. Thurman, J. R. Fienup, Phase-error correction in digital holography, Journal of the Optical Society of America A 25 (4) (2008) 983–994.
[33] E. Bellone de G., R. Paul, Characterization of a spatial light modulator for MORFEO and HARMONI adaptive optics test devices, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Yokohama, 2024, 130975D.
[34] L. H. Jamie, L. Anna, A. S. Steve, Improving spatial light modulator performance through phase compensation, SPIE Optics + Photonics, Denver, 2004, pp. 58–67.
[35] Y. Takiguchi, T. Otsu, T. Inoue, H. Toyoda, Self-distortion compensation of spatial light modulator under temperature-varying conditions, Optics Express 22 (13) (2014) 16087–16098.
[36] A. C. MacGillivray, I. R. Hristovski, M. F. Jenne, A. P. Reeves, R. M. Calvo, J. F. Holzman, Design considerations for wavefront sensing with self-referencing interferometers in adaptive optics systems, Journal of the European Optical Society-Rapid Publications 21 (1) (2025) 1.
[37] P. Buske, O. Hofmann, A. Bonnhoff, J. Stollenwerk, C. Holly, High fidelity laser beam shaping using liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulators as diffractive neural networks, Optics Express 32 (5) (2024) 7064–7078.
[38] A. Keskin, G. Kaya, N. Kaya, J. Strohaber, A. A. Kolomenskii, H. A. Schuessler, Dynamic control of Airy beams using real-time phase-amplitude encoding on a spatial light modulator, Optics 5 (4) (2024) 581–594.
[39] Y. Liang, X. Yun, M. He, Z. Wang, S. Wang, M. Lei, Zero-order-free complex beam shaping, Optics and Lasers in Engineering 155 (2022) 107048.
[40] E. Mart´ın-Badosa, M. Montes-Usategui, A. Carnicer, J. Andilla, E. Pleguezuelos, I. Juvells, Design strategies for optimizing holographic optical tweezers set-ups, Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics 9 (8) (2007) S267–S277.
[41] K. D. Wulff, D. G. Cole, R. L. Clark, R. DiLeonardo, J. Leach, J. Cooper, G. Gibson, M. J. Padgett, Aberration correction in holographic optical tweezers, Optics Express 14 (9) (2006) 4169–4174.
[42] R. J. Beck, J. P. Parry, W. N. MacPherson, A. Waddie, N. J. Weston, J. D. Shephard, D. P. Hand, Application of cooled spatial light modulator for high power nanosecond laser micromachining, Optics Express 18 (16) (2010) 17059–17065.
[43] Z. Zhao, Z. Xiao, Y. Zhuang, H. Zhang, H. Zhao, An interferometric method for local phase modulation calibration of LC-SLM using self-generated phase grating, Review of Scientific Instruments 89 (8) (2018) 083116.
[44] J. Strohaber, G. Kaya, N. Kaya, N. Hart, A. A. Kolomenskii, G. G. Paulus, H. A. Schuessler, In situ tomography of femtosecond optical beams with a holographic knife-edge, Optics Express 19 (15) (2011) 14321–14334.
[45] S. Mukhopadhyay, S. Sarkar, K. Bhattacharya, L. Hazra, Polarization phase shifting interferometric technique for phase calibration of a reflective phase spatial light modulator, Optical Engineering 52 (3) (2013) 035602.
[46] Y. Gao, R. Li, L. Cao, Self-referenced multiple-beam interferometric method for robust phase calibration of spatial light modulator, Optics Express 27 (24) (2019) 34463–34471.
[47] R. Li, L. Cao, Progress in phase calibration for liquid crystal spatial light modulators, Applied Sciences 9 (10) (2019) 2012.
[48] E. Nabadda, Liquid-crystal modulators in optical phase shifting interferometry and polarimetric imaging, Doctoral Dissertation Miguel Hern´andez University of Elche (2024) Alicante.
[49] Z. Lin, X. Deng, Y. Wu, J. Feng, H. Zhu, Y. Yang, J. Yu, D. Xue, J. Wang, ..., T. Li, Grating pitch comparator traceable to the Cr atom transition frequency, Measurement 242 (Part A) (2025) 115895.
[50] X. Liu, P. Kilcullen, Y. Wang, B. Helfield, J. Liang, Diffraction-gated real-time ultrahigh-speed mapping photography, Optica 10 (9) (2023) 1223–1230.
[51] M. Yang, C. Cui, L. Liu, P. Zhao, L. Gao, X. Li, An unfolding-based model for analysis of rotation and translation coupling in grating interferometers, SPIE SPIE/COS Photonics Asia, Advanced Sensor Systems and Applications XIV, Nantong, 2024, pp. 56–65.
[52] J. ´A. Picazo-Bueno, S. Ketelhut, J. Schnekenburger, V. Mic´o, B. Kemper, Off-axis digital lensless holographic microscopy based on spatially multiplexed interferometry, Journal of Biomedical Optics 29 (S2) (2024) S22715.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Photonics, Optoelectronics and Optical Communications

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Alpgiray Keskin ^*
0000-0002-3915-7908
Türkiye

Gamze Kaya
0000-0001-6660-0816
Türkiye

Sündüz Gökçen
0000-0001-8546-3861
Türkiye

Necati Kaya
0000-0001-9461-7623
Türkiye

Publication Date

June 30, 2026

Submission Date

March 2, 2026

Acceptance Date

May 22, 2026

Published in Issue

Year 2026 Volume: 12 Number: 2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.28979/jarnas.1900810

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA66UM93HL

Cite

RIS / Bibtex

APA

Keskin, A., Kaya, G., Gökçen, S., & Kaya, N. (2026). Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators. Journal of Advanced Research in Natural and Applied Sciences, 12(2), 103-117. https://doi.org/10.28979/jarnas.1900810

AMA

1.Keskin A, Kaya G, Gökçen S, Kaya N. Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators. JARNAS. 2026;12(2):103-117. doi:10.28979/jarnas.1900810

Chicago

Keskin, Alpgiray, Gamze Kaya, Sündüz Gökçen, and Necati Kaya. 2026. “Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators”. Journal of Advanced Research in Natural and Applied Sciences 12 (2): 103-17. https://doi.org/10.28979/jarnas.1900810.

EndNote

Keskin A, Kaya G, Gökçen S, Kaya N (June 1, 2026) Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators. Journal of Advanced Research in Natural and Applied Sciences 12 2 103–117.

IEEE

[1]A. Keskin, G. Kaya, S. Gökçen, and N. Kaya, “Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators”, JARNAS, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 103–117, June 2026, doi: 10.28979/jarnas.1900810.

ISNAD

Keskin, Alpgiray - Kaya, Gamze - Gökçen, Sündüz - Kaya, Necati. “Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators”. Journal of Advanced Research in Natural and Applied Sciences 12/2 (June 1, 2026): 103-117. https://doi.org/10.28979/jarnas.1900810.

JAMA

1.Keskin A, Kaya G, Gökçen S, Kaya N. Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators. JARNAS. 2026;12:103–117.

MLA

Keskin, Alpgiray, et al. “Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators”. Journal of Advanced Research in Natural and Applied Sciences, vol. 12, no. 2, June 2026, pp. 103-17, doi:10.28979/jarnas.1900810.

Vancouver

1.Alpgiray Keskin, Gamze Kaya, Sündüz Gökçen, Necati Kaya. Comparative Analysis of Interferometric and Diffraction-Based Phase Calibration for LCoS Spatial Light Modulators. JARNAS. 2026 Jun. 1;12(2):103-17. doi:10.28979/jarnas.1900810

DOAJ	EBSCO
Scilit	SOBİAD