Active-Tuned Plasmonic Angle Modulator: Proof of Concept for 3D Display

Haibo Li State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China Shuping Xu State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China Hailong Wang State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China Xu Weiqing State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China

3D display is an attractive visualization technology that provides an efficient tool to understand complex high-dimensional data and objects, e.g. scientific computing, computer aided design, medical imaging. To form an autostereoscopic 3D display, the emission angles of light beams from a 3D pixel should be modulated. In this work, we propose a plasmonic angle modulator based on the extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) phenomenon combined with the liquid crystal (LC)-tuned surface plasmons (SPs) (Fig.1a), which has potential application of being a pixel of a multi-view 3D display.^[1]

Figure 1 Geometry and plasmonic characters of the plasmonic angle modulator. (b) without voltage. (c) under an electric field of 2.4 V/μm.

The structure of this angle modulator is shown in Fig.1a. A white LED illuminates the Ag nanograting in a broad range of incident angles. Fig. 1b and c show the angle-resolved transmission spectra under different applied voltages. The transmission bands shifted to longer wavelengths under an electric field of 2.4 V/μm, indicating the possibility of angle modulation by electric signal.

Figure 2 Schematic diagram for the multi-view 3D display achieved by reproducing the light fields (the light intensities at different angles) of objects via the plasmonic angle modulator array.

Fig. 2 shows a proof of concept for a 3D display composed of a plasmonic angle modulator array. The scattering light field of an object could be reproduced by this plasmonic elements array. This active-tuned plasmonic angle modulator is easy to combine with the existing liquid-crystal display techniques, and a smaller pixel size compared with existing techniques using numerous directional emitters as subpixels means potential applications for ultra-resolution image.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Instrumentation Program (NIP) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2011YQ03012408) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21373096).

References:

[1] Li H, Xu S, Wang H, et al. ACS Photonics, 1(8): 677-682 (2014).

xuwq@jlu.edu.cn