Diffractive light modulator with dynamically rotatable diffraction plane

摘要

A light modulator includes elongated elements and a support structure. The elongated elements are arranged in parallel. Each element includes a light reflective planar surface with the light reflective planar surfaces lying in one or more parallel planes. The support structure is coupled to the elongated elements to maintain a position of the elongated elements relative to each other and to enable movement of each elongated element between a first modulator configuration and a second modulator configuration. In the first modulator configuration, the elongated elements act to reflect an incident light as a plane mirror. In the second modulator configuration, selected groups of elements are deflected and act to diffract the incident light along one or more of a plurality of diffraction planes. The groups of elements are configured according to one of a plurality of selectable group configurations. Each group configuration corresponds to one of the plurality of diffraction planes.