Optical Fiber Telecommunications VIA: Chapter 18. Technology and Applications of Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) in Telecommunications (Optics and Photonics)

Liquid crystal is now the dominant technology for flat-screen displays and has been used in telecom systems since the late 1990s. More recently, the adoption of liquid crystals in Wavelength Selective Switches—with the control of light on a pixel-by-pixel basis—has been enabled by developments in Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) backplane technologies derived from projection displays. This chapter outlines the operating principles of LCoS in existing wavelength-switching applications and describes the broad scope of new opportunities that are arising from the intrinsic performance and flexibility of LCoS as a switching medium.