Liquid Crystal Optical Phased Arrays (LCOPAs) are exciting, new optical devices that promise to revolutionize a wide variety of optical systems. However, their relative immaturity compared to other optical components means that there is not an extensive experience base from which to draw when an engineer is considering incorporating LCOPA technology into a new optical design. This presentation will review LCOPA device operation and discuss several practical methods for characterizing their performance. Numerical simulations of LCOPA operation together with characterization data from actual devices will be used to motivate a discussion of some of the non-ideal behaviors observed in LCOPA devices and how these effects impact actual systems applications. The talk will also examine examples of steered imaging systems, and a high power laser pointing system that incorporates LCOPAs.
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