Patent attributes
A liquid crystal diffractive light valve includes: a pair of opposed substrates wherein one of the substrates is a silicon wafer with associated electronics. The other substrate has an electrode layer facing the silicon substrate. And a ultraviolet curable composite material is disposed between the substrates which is then phase separated to form polymer walls having liquid crystal directors fixed therein regardless of application of an electric field across the electrode layers, and wherein pixel regions are formed between the polymer walls. The pixel regions have liquid crystal directors which are movable when an electric field is applied across the electrode layers. Application of an electric field allows for generation of phase differences between the wall and pixel regions to allow for Liquid Crystal on Silicon devices to be used as diffractive light valves.