Guangminouyang PHD Thesis 16jun2012

Hybrid Integrated Components
for Optical Display Systems --

Electroactive Polymer Based
Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical
Actuators

by
Guangmin Ouyang
Thesis submitted for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor

Department of Physics
University of Oslo

March 2012

ii
iii
Abstract
The current worldwide market for TV and projectors is a multi-billion dollar business.
It is expected that laser based displays will gradually replace standard lamp projection
systems, attributed to their outstanding performance in: large colour gamut, high contrast
and long lifetime. One of the technical obstacles to overcome for wide acceptance of
lasers displays is the speckle noise, which is an image degrading phenomenon inherent in
the coherent laser light.
The demand of the market gives the motivation of the project BIA-286 (founded by
Research Council of Norway, Project number 182667): hybrid integrated components in
laser display systems for speckle reduction. As part of the project, the thesis focus on de-
speckle solutions based on electroactive polymer (EAP) technology and micro-electro-
mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. To be more specific, in the present work we are
looking for modulators, with working mechanism of polymer electro-mechanical
actuation, to apply in laser display systems for speckle reduction. The modulators are
expected to possess the merits such as compact, efficient, easy implantation and low cost.
Two working packages are included in the thesis: material investigation/optimization
and modulator design/fabrication. As one of most widely used EAPs, dielectric
elastomers (DEs) are investigated, since their physical properties can be tuned by
modification of their chemical structures. The target of DE material
investigation/optimization is obtaining a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with fast
response time and requiring low driving voltage. In-depth understanding of PDMS, i.e.
the polymer micro-structure dependent electro-mechanical properties, is established
(Reported in Article I). The PDMS network structures are modified to achieve the desired
physical properties. PDMS with highly cross-linked network and minimum residual
groups show fast response time, but require high driving voltage.
We proceed to optimize PDMS electro-mechanical performance via network swelling,
as reported in Article II. Cross-linked PDMS is swollen by silicone oil. By introducing
short chain miscible solvent, polymer chains are surrounded by highly mobile solvents.
The ease of chain movement results in lower driving voltage requirement. Meanwhile, the
response time of PDMS increased, but the increase is rather moderate comparing with the
increase in Article I.

iv
Next, PDMS material optimization is carried out by filling PDMS with TiO
2

nanoparticles (reported in Article III). The PDMS-TiO
2
nanocomposite is prepared by in-
situ polymerization. The dielectric constant of PDMS-TiO
2
composite increases with the
filler concentration. An optimization point is found at 5 wt% TiO
2
particles. Comparing
with neat PDMS, the driving voltage is reduced (due to the increased dielectric constant),
and the response time is improved (due to the decreased chain mobility).
The second working package focuses on designing and fabricating of DE based
modulators, either as spatial light modulators (SLM) or de-speckle modulators. A SLM
with PDMS film sandwiched between two metal electrodes is reported in Article I. An air
gap structure is proposed and demonstrated in Article II. The reliability of the SLM is
improved by avoiding direct contact between the deformable PDMS surface and the rigid
electrodes. An alternate strategy for improving the modulator reliability is replacing the
top metal electrodes with transparent conductive polymer (PEDOT: PSS), as reported in
Article IV. This SLM has a sandwich structure PEDOT: PSS/PDMS/Gold electrode.
Reliability of the device is improved since PDMS is more compatible with PEDOT: PSS
than metals.
The DE material is applied in de-speckle modulators. A modulator by using dynamic
gratings for speckle reduction is proposed in Article V. To achieve a high de-speckle
efficiency, the DE material with response speed of 10 s is employed. By dynamically
splitting the laser beam into different high orders and then passing through a diffuser,
varied speckle patterns are generated on the screen. The speckle noise is smoothed out by
adding these speckle patterns together in the integration time of human eye. A de-speckle
modulator with DE material as dynamic gratings is fabricated and demonstrated for 50 %
speckle reduction.
Besides the DE based modulator, we also look for other speckle reduction techniques.
Two piezoelectric benders have been employed for speckle reduction, as reported in
Article VI. Speckle noise is suppressed to 6 % and 9 % in free space geometry and
imaging geometry respectively, by dynamically changing the illumination angle of the
laser beam on a random phase diffuser.

v
Acronyms
CP Conductive Polymer PSS Poly(styrenesulfonate)
CPO
Copper-Phthalocyanine
Oligomer
PU Polyurethane
CTE
Coefficient of Thermal
Expansion
PVDF Polyvinylidene fluoride
DE Dielectric Elastomer
P(VDF-
TrFE)
Poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-
trifluoroethylene)
DMD Digital Micromirror Device SC Speckle Contrast
DOE Diffractive Optical Element SEM Scanning Electron Microscopy
EAP Electroactive Polymer TIR Total Internal Reflection
ERFP
Electrostrictive Relaxor
Ferroelectric Polymers

FEM Finite Element Method
GLV Grating Light Valve
IG Ionic Gel
ITO Indium Tin Oxide
LED Light Emitting Diode
MEMS
Micro-Electrical-Mechanical
Systems

MOEMS
Micro-Opto-Electro-
Mechanical Systems

MW Molecular Weight
OLED Organic Light Emitting Diode
PANI Polyaniline
PDMS Polydimethylsiloxane
PEDOT
Poly(3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene)

PZT Lead Zirconate Titanate
PMN-PT
Lead Magnesium Niobate-
Lead Titanate

vi
Preface
This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Philosophiae
Doctor at the University of Oslo, Norway.
The work presented in this thesis was performed at the Department of Micro and Nano
Systems Technology (IMST) at Vestfold University College, Horten. The project is
funded by the Research Council of Norway (NFR) and poLight AS under grant BIA-286
project number 182667, Hybrid Integrated Components for Optical Display Systems.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Prof. Xuyuan Chen,
Prof. Kaiying Wang and Prof. Per hlckers. I am grateful for the inspiring guidance, the
fruitful discussions and support they offered. Many thanks to M. Nadeem Akram,
Vladimir Kartashov, always have good ideas for improving the research. Special thanks
to Prof. Einar Halvorsen and Zekija Ramic for their constant help in my study. Finally, I
would like to thank my parents and my fianc for the support and understanding during
these years.

vii
List of articles
Journal publications
i. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen, "A novel
tunable grating fabricated with viscoelastic polymer () and conductive polymer
(PEDOT)," Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 158, Issue. 2, pp. 313-
319, 2010.
ii. G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, V. Kartashov, X. Yan, and X.
Chen, "Speckle reduction using a motionless diffractive optical element,"
Optics Letters, Vol. 35, Issue. 17, pp. 2852-2854, 2010.
iii. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. Akram, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Optimization
of PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actuation material applied
in a MEMS spatial light modulator," Applied Physics A: Materials Science &
Processing, Vol. 103, Issue. 2, pp. 381-388, 2011.
iv. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Electroactive polymer-
based spatial light modulator with high reliability and fast response speed,"
Optical Engineering, Vol. 50, No. 124001, 2011.
v. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, and X. Y. Chen, "TiO
2
nanoparticles modified
polydimethylsiloxane with fast response time and increased dielectric
constant," Submitted to Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering,
2012.
vi. G. Ouyang, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, Z. Tong and X. Y. Chen, Laser speckle
reduction based on angular diversity induced by piezoelectric benders,
Submitted to IEEE photonics letters, 2012.
vii. M. N. Akram, Z. Tong, G. Ouyang, X. Chen, and V. Kartashov, "Laser
speckle reduction due to spatial and angular diversity introduced by fast
scanning micromirror," Applied Optics, Vol. 49, Issue. 17, pp. 3297-3304,
2010.

viii
Conference proceedings:
i. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. N. Akram and X. Y. Chen, "Fabrication and
characterization of polymer based spatial light modulators, " Proc. SPIE 7426,
742604-8, 2009.
ii. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Heriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen,
"PEDOT:PSS-- Material property characterization and spatial light modulator
fabrication, " Proc. IMAPS Nordic, pp. 112-114, 2009.
iii. G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, W. Gao, K. Wang, M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov and X.
Y. Chen, "Polymer Based Multiple Diffraction modulator for Speckle
Reduction, " Proc. SPIE 73871, 73871F, 2010.
iv. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, and X.Y. Chen, "Enhanced electro-mechanical
performance of TiO
2
nanoparticle modified polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as
electroactive polymers," Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems
Conference (TRANSDUCERS), pp. 614-617, 2011.
v. G. Ouyang, Z. M. Tong, M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, K. Y. Wang, and X. Y.
Chen, "Speckle reduction in laser displays using a MEMS tandem modulator,
" Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference
(TRANSDUCERS), pp. 538-541, 2011.
vi. Guangmin Ouyang, Kaiying Wang, Xuyuan. Chen, "Enhanced electro-
mechanical performance of TiO
2
nanoparticle modified polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS) as electroactive polymers, " EuroEAP 2011, Pisa, 2011.
vii. Guangmin Ouyang, Kaiying Wang, Lars Henriksen, and Xuyuan Chen, "High
sensitivity and fast response electroactive polymer via network swelling,"
Micromechanics and Micro systems Europe Workshop 2011, Tnsberg, 2011.
viii. Guangmin Ouyang, Kaiying Wang, and Xuyuan Chen, "Enhanced electro-
mechanical performance of TiO
2
/PDMS nanocomposite and its application in
MEMS tuneable gratings," Micromechanics and Micro systems Europe
Workshop 2011, Tnsberg, 2011.
ix. Kaiying Wang, Guangmin Ouyang, Muhammad N. Akram, Lars Henriksen
and Xuyuan Chen, "Surface and electromechanical properties of
polydimethylsiloxane films prepared by a modified molding technique," Proc.
SPIE 7381, 73810C, 2009.
ix
x. Kaiying Wang, Guangmin Ouyang, Xuyuan Chen, "Surface modification and
wettability of silicone PDMS film," Electronic System-Integration Technology
Conference (ESTC), Berlin, 2010.
xi. Akram M. N., Kartashov V., Wang K., Ouyang G.., Chen X., Laser speckle
reduction using dynamic polymer-based diffraction grating spatial phase
modulator, International symposium on photoelectronic detection and
imaging, Proc. SPIE 7382, 73822H (2009).
xii. M. Nadeem Akram, Guangmin Ouyang, Wenhong Gao, Zhaomin Tong and
Xuyuan Y. Chen, "Speckle reduction in line-scan laser projectors using binary
phase codes: theory and experiments, " Proc. SPIE 7387, 73871P, 2010.
xiii. Z. M. Tong, G. M. Ouyang, W. H. Gao, M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, K. Y.
Wang, and X. Y. Chen, "Simulation of laser speckle reduction by using an
array of diffraction gratings, " Proc. SPIE 7387, 73871S, 2010.
xiv. Zhaomin Tong, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Guangmin Ouyang, and Xuyuan
Chen, Vladimir Kartashov, "Laser Speckle Reduction Using MEMS Scanning
Mirror, " SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers, Volume 41, Issue 1, pp.
1909-1912, 2010.
xv. Wenhong Gao, Zhaomin Tong, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Guangmin
Ouyang, Xuyuan Chen, "Construction of Electrical Actuated two Dimensional
Phase Mask for Speckle Contrast Reduction in a Full Frame Laser Projector
System, " Speckle 2010, Brazil, 2010.
xvi. Wenhong Gao, Vladimir Kartashov, Guangmin Ouyang, Zhaomin Tong,
Muhammad Nadeem Akram and Xuyuan Chen, "The matrices used to reduce
speckle in laser projector system, " Proc. SPIE 7387, 73871R, 2010.
xvii. Wenhong Gao, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Guangmin Ouyang, Zhaomin
Tong and Xuyuan Chen, "Speckle reduction in line-scan laser projectors using
binary phase codes: theory and experiments," Proc. IDW10, Vol.1, pp.1569-
1572, 2010.
xviii. Xu Dang, Guangmin Ouyang, Zhaomin Tong, Nan Feng, Dong Yang, Akram
Muhammad Nadeem, Kaiying Wang and Xuyuan Chen, "Dynamic periods
tandem grating for speckle reduction, " Micromechanics and Micro systems
Europe Workshop 2011, Tnsberg, 2010.

x

xi
Contents
Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iii
Acronyms .................................................................................................................... v
Preface ....................................................................................................................... vi
List of articles ........................................................................................................... vii
1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Overview of the electroactive polymer technology ................................... 1
1.2 Dielectric elastomer: actuation mechanism, configuration and challenges 3
1.3 Applications of dielectric elastomers ......................................................... 5
1.3.1 Dielectric elastomer for MEMS spatial light modulator ........................ 6
1.3.2 Dielectric elastomer for MEMS de-speckle modulator ......................... 8
1.4 Aims and tasks of the study ...................................................................... 14
1.5 Outline of the thesis .................................................................................. 15
2 Summary of the articles .................................................................................. 16
2.1 Article I..................................................................................................... 16
2.2 Article II ................................................................................................... 21
2.3 Article III .................................................................................................. 24
2.4 Article IV .................................................................................................. 29
2.5 Article V ................................................................................................... 32
2.6 Article VI .................................................................................................. 36
3 Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 41
References ................................................................................................................. 43
Article I ..................................................................................................................... 51
Article II ................................................................................................................... 52
Article III .................................................................................................................. 53
Article IV .................................................................................................................. 54
Article V .................................................................................................................... 55
Article VI .................................................................................................................. 56

xii

Hybrid Integrated Components for Optical Display Systems -- Electroactive Polymer Based Micro-Opto-Electro-
Mechanical Actuators
1
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview of the electroactive polymer technology
Electroactive polymers (EAPs) have attracted considerable interests in applications of
electro-mechanical actuators. Traditional actuators include electro-magnetic actuators,
motors, hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic actuators. The relatively big size, heavy
weight, complex transmission and high cost of production limit their application area and
motivate the research on alternative technologies [1]. EAPs are polymers that exhibit a
change in size or shape when stimulated by an electric field and are emerging as a new
class of actuation material. The advantage of the EAP based modulators involve
lightweight, low cost, durability, easy fabrication, simple actuation configuration, etc [2].
EAPs can be broadly categorized into two major classes: electronic EAPs and ionic
EAPs. Further subdivision based on their actuation mechanism and type of material
involved is also possible. Dielectric elastomers (such as silicones [3-6], polyurethanes [3,
7], acrylics [4, 8, 9]), electrostrictive relaxor ferroelectric polymers (such as
polyvinylidene fluoride [3] and poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene)) [10-12]
and liquid crystal elastomers [13-15] can be put under electronic classification. The
actuation of electronic EAPs is generally from Maxwell stress or electrostriction. Ionic
gels (such as polyacrylic acid gels [16, 17] ), ionic polymer-metal composites [18-20] and
conductive polymers (such as polypyrroles [21, 22] and polyanilines [23, 24] ) fall under
the ionic classification. The actuation mechanism for ionic EAPs involves the diffusion or
mobility of ions. A comparison of EAP material properties is given in Table. 1.
The actuation mechanisms and configurations vary with the type of EAPs. Taking
electrostrictive relaxor ferroelectric polymers as an example, when the voltage is applied,
the polar groups start to align with regard to the electric field and result in crystal
elongation. This deformation is reversible when electric field in opposite direction is
applied. Poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) has been investigated by Zhangs
group [25]. A microfluidic pump is realized using this material, as shown in Figure 1. In
this microfluidic pump, the polymer diaphragm bends up and down under with applied
electric field, pumping the fluid through the channel along the preferred flow direction.


2
T
a
b
l
e

1
.

C
l
a
s
s
i
f
i
c
a
t
i
o
n

o
f

E
A
P

m
a
t
e
r
i
a
l
s

a
n
d

t
h
e
i
r

p
h
y
s
i
c
a
l

p
r
o
p
e
r
t
i
e
s

c
o
m
p
a
r
i
s
o
n
.

R
e
f
e
r
e
n
c
e
s

[
3
]

[
3
]

[
3
,

7
]

[
4
,

8
]

[
3
]

[
1
2
]

[
1
6
,

1
7
]

[
2
3
]

R
e
s
p
o
n
s
e

s
p
e
e
d

F
a
s
t

F
a
s
t

F
a
s
t

M
e
d
i
u
m

F
a
s
t

F
a
s
t

S
l
o
w

S
l
o
w

D
i
e
l
e
c
t
r
i
c

c
o
n
s
t
a
n
t

2
.
8

2
.
8

6

4
.
8

8
.
4

5
0

-
-

3
5

E
l
a
s
t
i
c

m
o
d
u
l
u
s

(
M
P
a
)

0
.
7

0
.
5

0
.
5

3

-
-

3
8
0

-
-

9
0
0

S
p
e
c
i
f
i
c

d
e
n
s
i
t
y

1

1
.
5

1
.
1

1

1
.
8

1
.
8

1

M
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
M
P
a
)

1
.
3
6

0
.
3
9

1
.
6

7
.
2

4
.
8

4
3

0
.
3

4
5
0

M
a
x
i
m
u
m

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
%
)

3
2

3
8

2
2

3
8
0

0
.
1

4
.
3

>
4
0

1
0

E
A
P

m
a
t
e
r
i
a
l
s

D
E
-
-

S
i
l
i
c
o
n
e

D
E
-
-

F
l
u
o
r
o
s
i
l
i
c
o
n
e

D
E
-
-
P
o
l
y
u
r
e
t
h
a
n
e

D
E
-
-
A
c
r
y
l
i
c

E
R
F
P
-
-
P
V
D
F

E
R
F
P
P
(
V
D
F
-
T
r
E
F
)

I
G
-
-

P
o
l
y
e
l
e
c
t
r
o
l
y
t
e

C
P
-
-

P
A
N
I

E
l
e
c
t
r
o
n
i
c

E
A
P
S

I
o
n
i
c

E
A
P
S

3

Figure 1. Schematic drawing of the microfluidic pump using P(VDF-TrFE) as the active polymer
material (see Ref. [25] ).

Detailed explanation of the actuation mechanisms and configurations for other EAPs
refers to [1, 3, 26]. The present research focuses on dielectric elastomer (DE), which is
going to be introduced in the following section.

1.2 Dielectric elastomer: actuation mechanism and configurations
Dielectric elastomers have been reported to have large achievable strain/stress, fast
response speed, long life time, high reliability and durability [27]. Some types of DE,
such as polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), is chemical and environmental inert. It has
resistance to high temperature, UV radiation and chemical attack. Moreover, the physical
properties of DEs can be tuned based on application requirements, by modifying its
micro-structure. Attributing to these merits, DE materials are are progressively emerging
as one of the best-performing materials and they are investigated in these work.
The actuation mechanism of DE is electro-mechanical, that a mechanical movement of
DE is achieved by applying electrical energy. Under electric field, DE deforms either by
Maxwell stress or electrostriction, or both. The Maxwell stress effect arises from
Coulomb electrostatic interactions among free charges between two electrodes. The
change of electric field distribution inside the DE is manifested as strain [28]. For DE
with elastic modulus Y and relative dielectric constant
r
, subjected to an electric field E,
the Maxwell stress induced strain S
Maxwell
, which is in the direction perpendicular to the
electrodes, is calculated by:
S
Maxwell
= -
0
r
E
2
/Y (1)

4
where
0
=8.85 pF/m is the dielectric constant of vacuum, the minus sign indicates that it is
always a compressive strain. The field induced deformation in silicones and acrylics
elastomers is primarily due to the Maxwell stress effects [9, 27].
Electrostriction arises due to the change of material dielectric properties under electric
field. The electrostriction induced strain S
electrostriction
is calculated by:
S
electrostriction
= - Q
0
2
(
r
-1)
2
E
2
(2)
where Q is the electrostrictive coefficient. From the equation, there is a direct coupling
between electric polarization and mechanical strain response. Electrostriction contributes
largely to the electromechanical response of polyurethanes.
In this work, one of the silicones, PDMS, are focused. Therefore it is the Maxwell
stress induced strain which is mostly concerned.
The basic element of DE based actuator is shown in Figure 2, where a DE layer is
sandwiched between two electrodes. At least one of the electrodes is compliant to couple
to the DE deformation. For Maxwell stress induced strain, when the electric field is
applied via electrodes, the electrostatic attraction between opposite charges and the
repulsion of like charges on the electrodes generate stresses on DE. The DE contract in
thickness and expand in area [26].

Figure 2. Typical configuration of DE based actuators. The DE actuated by means of electrostatic
forces applied via electrodes on the sides of DE material.
The basic element as shown in Figure 2 can be incorporated into a wide variety of
configurations. Several representative dielectric elastomer actuator configurations are
given in Figure 3. The DE films can be stretched over a frame, rolled into a scroll, formed
into a tubular shape, or laminated on a flexible substrate to form unimorphs and
bimorphs. The most suitable configuration depends on the application requirements and
the properties of DE films.
5

Figure 3. Representative dielectric elastomer actuator configurations (see Ref. [17] ).

Unimorph and bimorph actuators are benders. In unimorph benders, the DE films are
sandwiched between two electrodes. As one end of the DE film is fixed, when voltage is
applied, the free end of the DE film bends according to the polarity of the applied field. A
bimorph is stacking of two unimorph benders. Unimorph and bimorph benders have
application potential in low force robotic grippers. Diaphragm actuators can exploit both
directions of planar expansion of the DE films. This kind of actuators is promising in
applications such as pumps and loudspeakers. Spider and bowtie actuators are designed to
couple both planar directions into a single linear direction. They have been used in robotic
leg applications such as the self-contained hexapod robot [29]. Spring rolls are interesting
from the perspective that they are capable of providing a combination of large linear
strains with relatively large output forces [30, 31]. It capable of both bending and
elongation [32].

1.3 Applications of dielectric elastomers
Many applications have involved the DE actuation technology. The best example is
given by Swiss Federal Laboratories in 2005 EAP arm wrestling competition [33]. The
present robot, as shown in Figure 4, is driven by an array of rolled DE actuators. 250

6
rolled DE actuators with small diameters are arranged in two groups according to the
human muscle configuration in order to achieve an arm-like bidirectional rotation
movement. The robot is weight 15-20 kg and powered by a computer-controlled high
voltage amplifier. Though the robot lost the arm wrestling competition against human
component, it demonstrated the very bright feature for DE as artificial muscles.

Figure 4. (a) The spring roll DE actuator in robot. (b) Demonstration of arm wrestling robot. (see
Ref. [33] ).
Attributing to its light weight, simple actuation mechanism, easy processing, reliable
and bio-compatible, DE material is an excellent candidate in compact MEMS devices. In
the present work, the DE technology has been employed in MEMS modulator for optics
applications, i.e. for light modulation and speckle reduction. Details of these two
applications are introduced in this section.

1.3.1 Dielectric elastomer for MEMS spatial light modulator
Traditional SLMs are primarily based on silicon technology. Grating light valve (GLV)
[34], which is originally developed at Stanford University, is made by an 1D array of tiny
movable silicon nitride ribbons mounted on a silicon base. Digital micromirror device
(DMD) [35], which is invented by Texas Instruments, uses a 2D array of tilting silicon
micromirrors. Spatial optical modulator (SOM) [36], invented by Samsung, uses an array
of movable ribbons made of polarized lead zirconate titanate (PLZT). Commercialized
products based on these technologies are existing in the market, but the complex
processing steps result in high cost of the device.
DE materials have been considered as promising candidates in MEMS spatial light
modulators. The configuration and operation principle of a typical DE based SLM is
illustrated in Figure 5. A thin DE film is sandwiched between top reflective electrode and
rigid substrate with bottom electrodes. If no voltage is applied, the polymer has a plane
7
surface. The top electrode works as a flat mirror, reflecting the incoming light. If voltage
is applied through the top and bottom electrodes, the polymer surface deforms into a
sinusoidal shape according to the electric field distribution. From the reflective top
electrodes, higher diffraction orders of the light are propagated with different angles. By
selecting/blocking different diffraction orders, the light intensity of the incoming lights
can be modified.

Figure 5. Operation principle of the EAP based spatial light modulator. (a) no voltage is applied;
(b) voltage is applied.
DE based SLMs have many advantages comparing with traditional silicon based
SLMs. Firstly, the fabrication process is simple, therefore the yield is increased and the
cost is reduced. Secondly, a continuously reflective membrane is used on the top of DE,
giving 100% optical fill factor. Thirdly, since the number of pixels is determined by the
bottom electrodes, the resolution of the SLM is improved by enlarging the number of the
bottom electrodes.
Many DE based SLMs have been investigated [37-44]. One technical obstacle in
fabrication is the surface quality of metal films on DE. Buckles in metal film was reported
in [44], as shown in Figure 6. The cause is explained as the big thermal expansion
coefficient (CTE) difference between metal films and PDMS. During metal evaporation,
the metal has a high temperature and causes the heating of PDMS. After cooling to room
temperature, PDMS shrinks, resulting in the formation of buckles. An optimized
fabrication procedure is proposed by Sakaryas group in [37, 38]. Two silicon chips are
bonded together with an intermediate 5 m DE layer in between. The top silicon is
deposited with 50 nm silicon nitride layer as etch stop and 80 nm aluminium layer for
reflectivity and conductivity. A reflective surface with high optical quality is obtained

8
when the bulk silicon of the top chip is etched away. A fabricated SLM chip together with
the far-field diffraction patterns are shown in Figure 7. The SLM works at 10 Hz. A 2D
deformable micromirror device are reported by Kucks group [45]. Their technology is
compatible with CMOS technology for bottom electrodes matrix addressing. A 512 x 464
pixel SLM has been successfully fabricated. Silicones are applied as the electroactive
polymers to form gratings. The driving voltage is 250 V DC for bias voltages and 15 V
AC for signal voltage. Working frequency at 1 kHz is reported for this device.

Figure 6. Buckles in thin metal film on PDMS (See Ref. [44] ).

Figure 7. (a) Photography of a packaged SLM. (b) Far-field diffraction pattern of a semi-actuated
(up) and a full-actuated SLM (down).

1.3.2 Dielectric elastomer for MEMS de-speckle modulator
DE based modulator is suitable for optical modifications, such as speckle reduction. A
short introduction about speckle phenomenon and state of the art de-speckle technologies
are given in this section. Advantages of DE based de-speckle modulator are discussed.
In comparison of conventional lamps, the use of lasers in projection display provide
many advantages such as wide colour gamut, long life time, highly directional light, high
light intensity, etc. The imaging quality produced by laser projector is unbeatable even by
9
the latest LED, OLED technology. It has been considered as the light source for next
generation. However, one major technique obstacle, which prevents applications of laser
displays, is the speckle phenomenon. Speckle is induced by the light scattering and
interference of coherent radiation from a screen with roughness in the scale of optical
wavelength. A typical speckle pattern produced by green laser is illustrated in Figure 8.
The constructive and destructive interference pattern observed on the screen masks the
image information and therefore its reduction is highly desirable in projection displays.
The fundamental theory of speckle formation, its statistical properties and de-speckle
methods are described thoroughly by Goodman in [46]. Speckle phenomenon is evaluated
by the speckle contrast SC. The definition, given by Goodman, is:
= /
(3)
where is the standard deviation and
is the mean value of light intensity in the speckle

pattern. A speckle contrast lower than 4% is desired to avoid disturbance a human
observer [47]. This is challenging since a fully coherent and polarized laser produces
speckle contrast of SC=1.

Figure 8. A typical speckle pattern generated by green laser on a de-polarized screen.
Considerable efforts have been made to minimize the speckle noise [47-61]. An
efficient strategy is creating a number of speckle patterns in a short time. The averaging
function of human eye can smooth the speckle noise by adding all these speckle patterns
together in the integration time of human eye. Theoretically if N number of independent
speckle patterns are generated within 30 ms, a typical value of human eye integration
time, the speckle contrast is suppressed to SC=1 / N
0.5
[46]. Dynamic speckle patterns can
be generated by inserting moving or rotating diffusers into the beam or by moving the
projection screen itself. Several configurations based on the moving diffusers and screens

10
method have been reported, including moving/rotating random phase diffusers [47, 54],
moving screen and rotating diffuser [55], two spatially separated screens that are in
relative motion to each other [56]. Alternative strategy for speckle reduction includes:
using a static phase plate based on binary phase code [57] or on Barker code [58, 59],
using ultrasonic wave induced diffraction grating [60] and using several partially coherent
laser beams [61], etc.
Trisnadi [53] has reported a method to reduce speckle using moving diffusers with
optimized binary phase patterns. The predetermined phase patterns are obtained by
mapping the rows or columns of a Hadamard matrix [62] to the diffuser, as shown in
Figure 9. In this example, 16 phase patterns are produced based on 1616 Hadamard
matrix.
In order to apply this technology into laser projection display with GLV as display
chip, a 6464 Hadamard matrix is applied for producing diffuser with 64 phase patterns.
The diffuser is made by etching of the phase patterns in a fused-silica wafer. It is placed
at a plane conjugate to the GLV and is set in transverse oscillatory motion by a voice coil.
Within the integration time of the detector, laser beam goes through 64 phase patterns.
The measured speckle image, as shown in Figure 10(b), is an average of 64 images. By
using the diffuser, the speckle contrast reduced from 0.70 to 0.09, which is close to the
theoretical value 0.07/64
0.5
.

Figure 9. Mapping from the 1616 Hadamard matrix to sixteen phase patterns. (see Ref. [62] )
11

Figure 10. Images and sampling of intensity fluctuation of (a) the original speckle and (b)
the reduced speckle. (see Ref. [62])
Speckle reduction is achieved by applying the listed de-speckle techniques. However
for those methods which need mechanical vibration or rotation of the diffuser or screen, a
motor should be involved in the system. This increases the noise level and decrease the
system reliability. It is also difficult for practical implementation. The methods based on
binary phase code or Barker code are only applicable in line-scan projectors. Trisnadis
method requires a huge diffuser with pre-determined phase patterns, since each pixel in
the screen should be corresponded to a diffuser. When a laser array is used, the
illumination optics is complicated and the cost increases.
In this work, DE based MEMS modulators are employed for speckle reduction. The
modulator has similar structure as spatial light modulators. It utilizes polymer dynamic
gratings for speckle reduction. When light illuminated at the polymer grating, a
diffraction pattern is generated. The diffraction patterns passes through a random phase
plate, projects to the screen and creates a speckle pattern. The speckle pattern is
determined by the shape of the grating. By dynamically change the shape of the grating
(i.e. changing the spatial frequency, the orientation), the speckle pattern is changing with
time, accordingly. Adding these dynamic speckle patterns together in the integrating time
of human eye, the speckle noise is reduced.
Attributing to the merits of DE material, the DE based de-speckle modulator have
several advantages. Firstly, the DE is electro-active and no motor or mechanical
vibration/rotation is needed. Therefore, the reliability is improved and the noise is
minimized. Secondly, the de-speckle modulator is compact and lightweight because it is
fabricated by MEMS micro-machining technologies. The system implantation is more

12
flexible. Thirdly, the fabrication process is simple and straight forward. The production
cost is reduced. Last but not least, the modulators are made of chemical and
environmental inert material. According to experiments in [63] , it can stand 80 C, 80%
humidity, and long-time laser exposure without any degradation, providing the capability
to work in harsh environments.
1.4 Challenges of DE and DE based modulators
Though promising, there are still several technical obstacles for DEs and DE based
modulators to overcome for their wide application. The first challenge is the high electric
field requirement. Typical operating voltages for DE films (10-100 m in thickness)
range from 500 V to 10 kV [26]. Pelrines group [5] suggested that compact voltage
amplifiers could be designed to solve this problem. However, the high driving voltages
inevitably brings safety issues, especially in biomedical applications. Many efforts have
been asserted aiming at low driving voltage of DEs. A comprehensive study was carried
by Zhangs group [64]. Different hardeners were added into silicone to form DE with
varied physical properties. The study concluded that the silicone which has the lowest
elastic modulus and highest dielectric constant exhibits the highest strain response. In
order to reduce the driving voltage while maintaining the same strain, the elastic modulus
of DE should be decreased and the dielectric constant should be enhanced. Fillers with
high dielectric constant are widely used to mix with DE materials to enhance the
dielectric constant. Zhangs group reported in [64] that silicone with 20 wt% copper-
phthalocyanine oligomer (CPO) fillers shows almost 80% increase in dielectric constant
(from 3.27 to 5.85). The reduction of driving voltage is 28%. Szabos group increased the
dielectric constant of silicone from 3 to 8 by mixing 70 wt% PMN-PT particles inside
silicone matrix [65]. Enhancement of silicone dielectric constant from 6 to 8 was obtained
by Carpis group, by mixing 30 wt% of TiO
2
particles into silicone [2].
The slow response speed of DEs is another challenge in developing DE actuators.
Though DEs have been considered having the fastest response speed among EAP
materials, the response speed is still relatively slow comparing with silicon based
modulators and actuators. The response speed of DEs, which is typically in the range of
milliseconds to seconds [37, 64], is originated from its intrinsic viscoelastic properties.
The response speed in this range maybe good enough for some DE applications such as in
energy harvesters, robots, pumps, and loudspeakers. However, a faster response speed is
necessary for applications like spatial light modulators (SLM), tuneable gratings, optical
13
switches and variable optical attenuator [66]. For example, in DE based spatial light
modulators, a response speed in microsecond is necessary to eliminate the motion-blur in
HD line-scan display systems. Techniques for improving the response speed involve
reducing the viscosity of DEs. For cross-linked polymers, this is achieved by increasing
the cross-linking density. Higher cross-linked elastomer exhibits less viscosity and reacts
faster to the stimulation. However, the elastic modulus increases with the cross-linking
density, meaning a higher driving voltage is needed to activate the DEs. This is a trade-off
situation between response speed and driving voltage. Optimisation of the polymer
network structure is desired to achieve both the response speed and low driving voltage.
Other challenges in developing DE actuators include selecting of suitable compliant
electrodes. In DE actuator configurations, the electrodes contact with DE and couple to
the deformation. It is important to find compliant thin electrodes to deform with the DE
and without generating an opposing stress or losing conductivity during DE actuation. In
early stage of DE actuator development, thin metal films were deposited on the surface of
DE material as electrodes. This has been approved impractical. Cracking on metal films
during DE deformation was observed because of the stiff metal films and the big CTE
difference between metal and polymer. Kofods group investigated a number of
compliant electrodes for DE actuators, including carbon black, rubber electrodes, glue
electrodes, grease electrodes and dust electrodes [67]. It turns out that grease electrodes
shows best performance in DE actuators. Nevertheless the messy nature of grease
electrodes and their uniformity problems have driven researchers to investigate more
sophisticated alternatives. The most recent development of compliant electrodes is single
wall carbon nanotubes, which has been presented by Yuans group in [68].
The choice of DEs in different applications is also important. To date, the development
of DEs focuses on two types: acrylics and silicones. These two types of DEs show great
electro-mechanical performance under applied electric field. Generally speaking, actuator
designed using acrylic elastomer is impractical since its property is largely dependent on
temperature. Silicone, on the other hand, shows resistance to temperature variation and
environmental degradation. Its physical properties remain constant over a wide
temperature range. High actuation efficiency is a further advantage of silicone over
acrylic attributed to its lower viscosity. At last, silicones are more biocompatible than
most carbon-based polymers [69], and therefore are more suitable for biomedical
applications.


14
1.5 Aims and tasks of the study
The main objective of the project is to design and fabricate optical components for
display systems. Specifically, we are looking for modulators, which are compact, efficient
and low cost, to apply in laser display systems for speckle reduction. The solution is a
micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) modulator based on micromaching
and dielectric elastomer technology. As part of the project, the present research focuses
on two fields: DE material investigation and modulator design/fabrication.

The aim of the material investigation, is finding a DE material, which exhibits high
electro-mechanical performance and suitable as actuation material for MEMS modulators.
The tasks include:
Literature survey and theoretical analyse of DE material properties, actuation
mechanisms, configurations, challenges and solutions.
DE electro-mechanical properties characterization: Measurement system design,
construction and calibration; material properties testing.
DE electro-mechanical properties optimization: PDMS micro-structure tuning via
cross-linking density controlling, swelling, and dielectric nanoparticles mixing.
The DE materials with optimized properties are applied in MEMS modulators. The
target is to design and fabricate a DE based MEMS modulator, which can be implemented
into laser display systems for speckle reduction. The MEMS spatial light modulators
based on DE technology is another outcome. The tasks in this part include:
Study and literature survey of the speckle fundamentals, lasers, state of the art of
de-speckle methods.
Finite element method (FEM) simulations of modulators performance: structure
dependence, material properties dependence, driving condition dependence, etc.
Component design and fabrication: designing of the modulator structure based on
FEM simulations; planning the fabrication process and performing the device
fabrication in clean-room using micromachining technology.
Speckle reduction characterization: using the fabricated de-speckle modulator in
constructed optical systems for speckle reduction; comparing the experiments with
the theoretic value; optimization in system level.
Spatial light modulator characterization.

15
1.6 Outline of the thesis
The thesis is organized based on the published and submitted journal articles. The first
chapter Introduction gives an overview about state of the art technologies, the
motivation and the scope of the research. In Chapter 2 Summary of the articles, the
published and submitted journal articles are collected. All articles are briefly described
and discussed. Each article represents a stage of the work. These articles are organized in
a symmetrical way to show the progress of the research step by step. The full-length
articles are enclosed in the end of the thesis. In Chapter 3 Conclusions, the
investigations are summarized and the contribution of this work to science is concluded.


16
2 Summary of the articles
In this section, four published and two submitted journal articles are collected and
summarized to present the research content during Ph.D studies. The research consists of
two packages: the investigation of DE material is focused in Article I, Article II and
Article III; the DE applications in SLM and in de-speckle modulator are descripted in
Article IV and Article V. Another technique to reduce speckle noise by using
piezoelectric material is reported in Article VI. Collected articles are briefly descripted
based on the research motivation, experiments, results and discussion. The collected
articles are organized in terms of the research stage, rather than the publication date. The
full-length articles are enclosed in the end of the thesis.

2.1 Article I
G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. N. Akram, L. Henriksen and X. Y. Chen, Optimization of
PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actuation material applied in a
MEMS spatial light modulator, Applied Physics A, Vol.103, Issue.2, pp.381-388,
2011.

Motivation:
The motivation of this work is study of DE materials and improves their
electromechanical actuation performance. Because the DE is going to be applied in
MEMS modulators for light modulation, a fast response time of DE is required to ensure
the modulation efficiency. Moreover, a low driving voltage is always desired from the
safety and system simplicity points of view. These two challenges, which are not just to
DEs but to all the EAPs, are the primary motivations in this work.
Another motivation is establishing the material characterization systems. In order to
perform materials characterization, reliable and precise measurement systems is
necessary. Elastic modulus and response time are the most interested properties in this
work and corresponding measurements system is important.

17
Experiments:
Among all DEs, PDMS is chosen as the actuation material, attributed to its fast
response, softness, and chemical/environmental resistance. Most importantly, its physical
properties can be tuned by modifying its network structure. The target is obtaining a
PDMS with fast response time and low elastic modulus (therefore, need low voltage to
achieve the same strain, as indicated by Equation.1). The solution is PDMS micro-
structure modification. PDMS elastomers have three-dimensional networks, which are
formed by hydrosilylation process [70]. In this work, the 3D network of PDMS is formed
by vinyl-terminated linear PDMS cross-linked with trimethylsiloxy-terminated
methyhydrosiloxane-dimethylsiloxane copolymer in the presence of platinum complex
catalyst. The electro-mechanical properties of PDMS depend on both the cross-linked
network and the residual chemical groups. The PDMS cross-link density and the amount
of chain entanglements in PDMS network is modified by changing the cross-linker
concentration, chain length of linear PDMS, functionality of cross-linker.
The measurement systems for response time and elastic modulus characterization are
constructed. The response time is measured by an optical-mechanical system, as shown in
Figure 11. The testing polymer is deposited on a prism coated with an indium tin oxide
(ITO) layer (works as one electrode). A metal needle (works as another electrode) is
suspended close to the polymer film. With the voltage applied, a small spot on the
polymer (the area under the needle) experience Maxwell stress and deform. The
deformation results in light diffraction and scattering, which is detected by the photo-
detector. The response time is obtained by comparing the detected signal to applied
voltage in an oscilloscope.

Figure 11. Diagram of the response time measurements. (a) Measurement setup; (b) Applied AC
voltage and detected light intensity in oscilloscope.

18

The elastic modulus of the polymer is obtained by Hertz equation [71] using a
mechanical measurement system, as illustrated in Figure 12. A metal probe with sphere
indenter is fixed with a load cell. The probe is controlled to move perpendicularly to the
polymer surface by a control stage. When the indenter touches the polymer surface, the
contacting force is detected by the load cell. According to Hertz equation, there is a linear
relationship between indentation depth of power 3/2 and the force on indenter. The elastic
modulus is a function of the gradient and it is acquired by fitting indentation depth with
regard to detected force.

Figure 12. Diagram of the elastic modulus measurements. (a) Measurement setup; (b) The
calculated elastic modulus based on the relationship between h
3/2
and contacting force.

Results and discussion:
The influence of the cross-linker concentration, linear PDMS chain length and
functionality of cross-linkers on response time and elastic modulus are presented in Table
1, Table 2 and Table 3, respectively. From Table 1, a fastest PDMS elastomer (9 s) is
obtained at 10% cross-linker concentration, indicating that an ideal network is formed
with minimum residual groups. According to the experiments, this network is not formed
when the function groups of cross-linker (Si-H) are equal to that of the linear PDMS
(C=C), but is achieved in the presence of extra Si-H groups. This is attributed to
oxidation/hydrolysis side reactions of Si-H groups, via reaction with other compounds
such as oxygen and moisture in air [72].

19

Table 1. Dependences of response time and elastic modulus on cross-linker concentration.
Samples Cross-linker
Concentration
C=C:Si-H Response
time (s)
Elastic
modulus (kPa)
Curing
time (min)
A1 3% 1:0.4 * * *
A2 4% 1:0.5 11200 8 84
A3 5% 1:0.6 980 32 63
A4 8% 1:1.0 65 278 41
A5 10% 1:1.2 9 601 22
A6 20% 1:2.4 100 481 6
A7 40% 1:4.8 700 122 2
A8 45% 1:5.3 800 79 2
A9 60% 1:7.1 x 3 1
A10 65% 1:7.7 x 1 1
A11 67% 1:8.0 * * *
* A gel-like elastomer cannot be formed.
x The response time is impossible to measure since the polymer is extremely sticky and
soft.
From Table 2, the response time increases with molecular weight of linear PDMS. It is
due to the increased chain lengths between the cross-linking sites. In other words, the
cross-link density is lower with increased chain length of linear PDMS, and polymer with
lower cross-link density is slower. When long chain linear PDMS mix with cross-linker,
the long-range chain-chain interactions, called chain entanglements, dominated the
polymer network. The consequence of the entanglements domination (B4, B5) is the
significantly increase response time [73]. Therefore a short linear PDMS is the choice to
form a cross-linking dominated PDMS network, if fast response speed is desired.
Table 2. Dependences of response time and elastic modulus on linear PDMS chain length.
Samples Molecular
weight of linear
PDMS (g/mol)
Response time
(s)
Elastic modulus
(kPa)
Curing time
(min)
B1 800 * * *
B2 6000 5 712 28
B3(A5) 9400 9 601 22
B4 28000 190 380 7
B5 62700 500 175 1

20

According to Table 3, with the decrease of cross-linker functionality (C1C4), the
cross-link density is smaller; therefore a slower and softer PDMS is obtained. The
relationship between response time and elastic modulus show agreement with the
Voiget-Kelvin model [74], in which the response time is inversely proportional to the
elastic modulus.
Table 3. Dependences of response time and elastic modulus on the functionality of cross-linker.
Samples Molecular weight
of cross-linker
(g/mol)
Functionalit
y of cross-
linker
Response
time (s)
Elastic
modulus
(kPa)
Curing
time
(min)
C1 1050 9.2 8 781 2
C2 1950 8.9 8 697 2
C3(A5,B3) 1950 4.8 9 601 22
C4 1950 2.2 200 79 48
C5 1950 1.1 * * *

Based on the experiments, PDMS elastomer formed by short chain vinyl-terminated
PDMS cross-linking with high functionality cross-linker has the fastest response speed.
Such polymer has densely cross-linked networks with minimum residual groups. They are
good candidates for MEMS modulators. The PDMS elastomer, which has response time
of 9 s and elastic modulus of 601 kPa is prepared and applied as the actuation material
in a MEMS spatial light modulator.
A SLM, as shown in Figure 13(a), is fabricated using micro-machining technology. In
this SLM, the actuation material PDMS is sandwiched between rigid glass substrate and
thin gold film. Under the applied voltage (250V DC and 100 V AC), the surface of
elastomer deforms, forming a sinusoidal grating. The functionality of this PDMS based
SLM is demonstrated by illuminating it with a laser beam. As shown in Figure 13(b), the
polymer grating successfully diffracted light into higher orders.
21

Figure 13. Photographs of (a) Fabricated SLM chips using PDMS as actuation material; (b)
Diffraction patterns from the SLM.

2.2 Article II
G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, and X.Y. Chen, High sensitivity and fast
response Polydimethylsiloxane via network swelling and its application in MEMS
spatial light modulator, Optical engineering, Vol. 50, No. 124001, 2011.

Motivation:
Based on Article I [75], the response time and elastic modulus of PDMS can be tuned
by modifying its network structure. A PDMS with fast response time is achieved, but with
the cost of increased elastic modulus. Typically PDMS with fast response speed has
highly cross-linked network and maintain high elastic modulus. Another strategy, aiming
to obtain both fast response speed and low elastic modulus, or to obtain fast response
speed with slightly increased elastic modulus, should be explored for improving the
performance of PDMS in MEMS modulator.
The structure of SLM proposed in Article I has a metal film directed deposited on
PDMS deformable surface. This is not a good choice since the metal film may bring
reliability problems due to fatigue and creep, not to mention that the film itself
mechanically constrain the deformation of PDMS. Improvement of the SLM structure is
desired in the device reliability point of view.

22

Experiments:
The solution for material optimization is PDMS micro-structure modification via
network swelling. Cross-linked PDMS is swollen by silicone oil with molecular weight
around 700. Samples with solvent concentration varied from 0% to 90% are prepared and
characterized.
The SLM is designed to avoid the direct contact between PDMS deformable surface
and rigid electrodes. An air-gap structure is proposed. The air gap between PDMS and
signal electrodes allows free deformation of PDMS and avoids fatigue and creep of the
electrodes. The SLM is fabricated using micro-machining technology. The fabrication
process is descripted in Figure 14.

Figure 14. SLM fabrication process flow. (a) Au and TiW interdigital electrodes patterning. (b)
Electrodes wire-bonding and wire protection. (c) Glass beads and conductive adhesives
deposition. (d) PDMS deposition. (e) PDMS squeezing. Fibers are used to define the PDMS
thickness. (f) PDMS curing and peeling. Because of the hydrophilic surface of the glass plate,
PDMS elastomer is only attached to the prism. (g) Chip mounting. The ITO electrodes on the
prism are connected to the chip by conductive adhesive.

The dependence of response time and elastic modulus on solvent concentration is
plotted in Figure 15. By introducing short chain miscible solvent into PDMS, the polymer
network is swollen. Because the polymer chains are surrounded by highly mobile
23
solvents, the chain movement is promoted. The ease of chain movement results in the
decrease of elastic modulus. Meanwhile, the response time of PDMS increased, but this
effect is rather moderate. To show the advantage of this optimization method, the
properties of PDMS via network swelling are compared with the results from Article I
[75]. As shown in Figure 16, in order to obtain a PDMS with similar response time, the
PDMS tuned by network swelling has much lower elastic modulus.

Figure 15. Response time and elastic modulus of swollen PDMS with regard to solvent
concentration.

Figure 16. Comparison of response time and elastic modulus of PDMS between this work and
Article I.
The PDMS, which has elastic modulus 200 kPa and response speed 34 s, is applied in
a SLM. The schematic of the device is shown in Figure 17. It is driven by 200 V DC
voltage and 60 V AC voltages to the ITO and interdigital electrodes, respectively. The
response time of the modulator is measured as 35 s. The SLM shows no degradation or

24
breakdown after millions of actuation cycles. It functioned well after storage in room
temperature for a month, indicating good reliability of the device.

Figure 17. Schematic of the air-gap SLM structure: (a) Top view; (b) Cross-section view.

2.3 Article III
G Ouyang, K Wang, and X Y Chen, TiO
2
nanoparticles modified polydimethylsiloxane
with fast response time and increased dielectric constant, Submitted to Journal of
Micromechanics and Microengineering, 2012.

Motivation:
From Article I [75] and Article II [76], we see that the fast response time obtain with
the cost of increase of elastic modulus. The aim for DE material properties optimization is
to achieve fast response and low driving voltage. From Equation. (1), the low driving
voltage is accomplished either by decreasing the elastic modulus, or increasing the
dielectric constant of DE actuation material. Mixing of polymers with dielectric or
piezoelectric fillers to form polymer composites has been recognized as an efficient way
to increase the dielectric constant of polymers. According to [77], when fillers with
dielectric constant
filler
mixed with polymer with dielectric constant
polymer
, the dielectric
constant of the composite
composite
is in the range of:
polymer
<
composite
<
filler
. The work
25
present in this article is to prepare fillers modified PDMS, which has enhanced dielectric
constant, to reduce the driving voltage requirement.

Experiments:
As the host polymer, PDMS with three dimensional networks is formed by crosslinking
linear vinyl-terminated PDMS with trimethylsiloxy-terminated methyhydrosiloxane-
dimethylsiloxane copolymer. TiO
2
nanoparticles are selected as fillers due to its high
dielectric constant, chemical inertness, non-toxicity and easy dispersion in silicones [2].
The PDMS-TiO
2
nanocomposite is prepared by in-situ polymerization. Firstly, TiO
2

particles are mixed with linear PDMS in the presence of polyether-modified silicone,
which works as dispersant. These components are mixed by high energy ball-milling for
24 hours. Secondly, the cross-linker and catalyst are added into the solution sequentially,
followed by 2 minutes manual stirring after each step. Finally, samples are cured at room
temperature for 30 minutes.

Inhomogeneous dispersion due to pronounced agglomeration tendency of nanoparticles
is a common phenomenon for synthesizing polymer nanocomposites [27]. Two
techniques have been applied to suppress the agglomeration. High-energy ball-milling is
employed during mixing, providing high impact and shear energy to break agglomerates.
Moreover, polyether-modified silicones, which is a good dispersant for dispersing TiO
2

into silicones, is used for homogenous dispersion and avoiding particles re-
agglomeration.
The size distribution of the dispersed particles in PDMS solution is characterized by
particle size analyser and SEM. The results are given in Figure 18 and Figure 19
respectively. Both experiments indicate that the particles in PDMS solutions have size
around 500 nm.

26

Figure 18. Particle size distribution of nanoparticles in PDMS solution with and without the
dispersant, measured by particle size analyser.

Figure 19. SEM image of TiO
2
nanoparticles.
Light transmittance spectra for the nanocomposites films (after curing) with different
particle concentrations are plotted in Figure 20. The transmittance decreases with particle
concentration. At the UV range (300 nm 400 nm), the light loss is dramatic for all films,
due to the absorption of TiO
2
fillers at this wavelength range [16]. When it comes to the
visible wavelength (400nm 800 nm) the light loss is mostly due to the Mie scattering.
27

Figure 20. The transmittance spectra of 10 m nanocomposite films with varied TiO
2

concentrations.
The dependence of nanocomposite elastic modulus on TiO
2
particle concentration is
plotted in Figure 21. The influence of particles to the elastic modulus is attributed to two
factors: softening effects due to the interfering of cross-linking (major effect for TiO
2

concentration lower than 5 wt%) and hardening effects due to the particle-polymer
interaction (major effect for TiO
2
concentration higher than 5 wt%). At 5 wt% particle
concentration, the two effects are balanced with each other, and the elastic modulus is
more or less the same as neat PDMS elastomer.

Figure 21. The elastic modulus of nanocomposites with varied TiO
2
concentrations.
The effect of particle concentration on the response time is given in Figure 22. With
increase of the particle concentration, the PDMS response time increase and then

28
decrease. An optimization point is found at 5 wt% particle concentration. Comparing with
neat PDMS, the response time of PDMS with 5 wt% fillers improves from 9 s to 6 s,
while the elastic modulus is more or less the same.

Figure 22. The response time of nanocomposites with varied TiO
2
concentrations.
The dependence of the dielectric constant on particle concentration is shown in Figure
23. A sharp increase of the dielectric constant from 2.97 to 3.85 is observed when the
concentration of TiO
2
particles increases from 0 wt% to 5 wt%. Thereafter, the dielectric
constant gradually increased to 4.4 with particles concentration reaching to 30 wt%. The
increasing of dielectric constant is attributed to the high dielectric constant of TiO
2
.
The measured dielectric constant of nanocomposite is compared with theoretical values
calculated from several mixing rules: Maxwell-Wagner equation [78, 79], Sillars equation
[80], Looyenga equation [81], and Lichtenecker equation [82]. As seen from Figure 23,
none of the theoretical model predicts the dielectric constant change of nanocomposite
well. The reason could be due to: these mixing rules hold for the dielectric constant at
high frequency range, while in this work the dielectric constant has been measured at 100
Hz. At low frequency, the Maxwell-Wagner relaxation process [83] arises and influences
the dielectric constant.
29

Figure 23. Experimental and theoretical dielectric constant of nanocomposites with varied TiO
2

concentrations.

2.4 Article IV
G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen, A novel tunable
grating fabricated with viscoelastic polymer (PDMS) and conductive polymer
(PEDOT), Sensors and actuators A: Physical, Vol.158, Issue.2, pp.313-319, 2010.

Motivation:
This work is performed after the study in Article I. Motivation of the work is to design
and fabricate a novel SLM with improved reliability. Beside the air-gap structure as
reported in Article II, a SLM, in which transparent a conductive polymer is utilized as
electrode, is proposed. Attributing to the stability and compatibility with other polymer
materials, conductive polymer PEDOT: PSS is employed as the top electrode. Moreover,
PEDOT: PSS is a cheap material and gives opportunity for easy deposition by screen
printing [84] , spin coating [85], roll-to-roll coating [86].
Another motivation is to investigate the conductive polymer. Optical and electrical
properties of the PEDOT: PSS as well as its processing technique is studied. The
knowledge of conductive polymer is not only useful for SLMs but for all MEMS
modulators, especially in some biological applications where an all-organic modulator is
desired.

30

Experiments:
In the SLM, PDMS, working as actuation material, is sandwiched between rigid glass
substrate and conductive polymer PEDOT: PSS. The transmission and sheet resistance of
the conductive polymer are measured for different thickness of PEDOT: PSS films.
The device is fabricated using micro-machining technology. The fabrication process is
simple and straight forward. PDMS is an originally hydrophobic material exhibiting a
static contact angel of 110
o
[87]. A surface treatment of PDMS to make it hydrophilic is
necessary for the subsequent PEDOT: PSS deposition. Plasma treatment is commonly
applied to change the wettability of polymers [88-90]. SF
6
, Ar and O
2
plasmas are tried
one after another for PDMS surface modification. The wettability is evaluated by
measuring the contact angle between water drops and the modified surface. The surface
morphology of PDMS after the plasma treatment is also characterized.

Unlike the SLM reported in Article I where the illumination light is reflected at the top
metal surface, the device proposed in this work has transparent top electrodes. If no
voltage is applied, the polymer surface is flat. Since both PEDOT: PSS and PDMS are
transparent, incoming light goes through these layers with the same optical path and
reflects at the underlying gold electrode. The reflected light is mainly in the 0
th
diffraction
order. If the driving voltage is applied, the polymer surface deforms into a sinusoidal
shape. When incoming light penetrates the transparent layers, which has varied thickness
at different location, a spatially varying optical path of the light beam is obtained. The
polymer layers act like a phase grating and diffract light into higher diffraction orders.
A prototype of the SLM has been fabricated as shown in Figure 24. PEDOT: PSS films
with thickness of 100 nm are deposited on PDMS surface. As a preliminary test, the
modulator has interdigital bottom electrodes and it works for one pixel. Hence there are
only two signal voltages which are applied through the left and right bottom electrodes,
respectively. The grating profile on PEDOT: PSS surface under 250 V driving voltage is
measured by interferometer and shown in Figure 25(a). The value of the peak-to-peak
deformation is approximately 200 nm.
31

Figure 24. A prototype of the SLM. The centre of the chip is covered by PDMS and PEDOT:
PSS. The underlying interdigital electrode is zoomed in and shown in the bottom-right corner.

Figure 25. (a) Grating profile on PEDOT: PSS surface measured by an interferometer. The relief
depth is exaggerated for observation; (b) Simulation results of surface grating from COMSOL.
The colour grade represents the magnitude of the electric potential.
A 3D model simulation is performed by coupling electrical domain and mechanical
domain in COMSOL Multiphysics [91]. The simulation results are obtained by solving
the Maxwells equations and the Hooks law in electrical domain and mechanical domain,
respectively. The simulated PDMS grating under applied voltage is shown in Figure
25(b). The simulation results are compared with experimental results in terms of PDMS
surface relief depth. As shown in Figure 26, the experiments agree with the simulations.

32

Figure 26. Experimental results () and simulation results () of PDMS relief depth with regard
to the driving voltage.
The response time of the device is measured as rise time 240 s and fall time 250 s.
The response speed is determined both by the time needed for polymer deformation, and
by the time constant of the RC circuit. In this work, the PDMS is synthesized to have
response time of as 10 s, while the retardation time of the RC circuit, which is calculated
by =RC, is 230 s. The slow RC charging process is originated from the high resistance
of the thin conductive polymer film. If the PEDOT: PSS is tuned to have high
conductivity, as reported in [86, 92, 93], the RC charging time should be in the range of
nanoseconds.
The stability of the device is tested by continuously driving the device by 200 V and 1
kHz rectangular wave for eight hours. The test shows that the modulator works well after
millions times of actuation. No breakdown or reduction in the relief depth is observed.
Eight hours continuously laser exposure does not bring any degradation of the modulator.
The modulator works well after two months stored at room temperature.

2.5 Article V
G. Ouyang, Zhaomin Tong, M. Nadeem Akram, Kaiying Wang, Vladimir Kartashov,
and Xuyuan Chen, Speckle reduction using a motionless diffractive optical element,
Optics letters," Vol. 35, Issue.17, pp. 2852-2854, 2010.

Motivation:
As described in the introduction part, laser display has many advantages (e.g. colour
performance, brightness, contrast and lifetime) comparing with conventional lamp
33
displays. However, the speckle phenomenon significantly degrades the imaging quality
and need to be suppressed. Considerable efforts have been made to solve the problem.
However, the proposed solutions are either expensive or not reliable.
A motionless diffractive optical element (DOE) is proposed in this work for speckle
reduction. The key component in the device is dynamic polymer gratings, which is
formed by DE material actuated under AC voltage. To achieve a satisfied de-speckle
efficiency, the DE material with response speed in micro-seconds is necessary. The
PDMS with optimized electro-mechanical properties using the reported techniques in
Article I to III is a perfect candidate. Attributing to the merits of DE material, the de-
speckle modulator have several advantages. The modulator is lightweight, compact, and
therefore easy for implementation. The fabrication is simple, hence the cost is low. The
reliability is improved since no mechanical vibration/rotation is used in the system.

Experiments:
The schematic of the modulator is shown in Figure 27(a). The de-speckle modulator
has similar structure as the air-gap SLM, except in this case there are three separated
polymer gratings. The polymer gratings have different orientations and spatial
frequencies, which are determined by the shape of the underlying interdigital electrodes.
Using micro-machining technology, a MOEMS de-speckle modulator based on DE
material is fabricated and shown in Figure 27(b), where the modulator is assembled in a
fixture for characterization.

Figure 27. (a) Schematic of the dynamic DOE. Picture in the bottom shows the different
electrodes in each grating. The dimensions are not to scale. (b) A fabricated DOE assembled in a
fixture with electrical connection.

34
The working principle of the de-speckle modulator for speckle reduction is creating N
number of speckle patterns and reduce the speckle contrast to SC=1 / N
0.5
in the
integration time of human eye. In the modulator, each grating can be switched on and
off independently. In the off state, the PDMS surface is flat and the incident light is
reflected at the angle of the total internal reflection (TIR); while in the on state, a phase
grating is generated on the PDMS surface, splitting light into several diffraction orders.
When one or several gratings are actuated, the incoming light is reflected sequentially and
is split into a multitude of diffraction orders. There are totally N=2
m
diffraction patterns
for the modulator with m gratings. The diffraction patterns are scattered by a diffuser,
homogenized by a light pipe and projected to the screen as speckle patterns. By actuating
PDMS in high frequency, numbers of speckle patterns are generated fast and averaged out
in human eye. As seen in this application, if N=1000 number of speckle patterns need to
be created within the integration time of human eye (around 30 ms), the response speed of
PDMS should be at least 30 s. It is important to optimize PDMS to achieve the response
speed requirement. The PDMS used in this work has response time 10 s and elastic
modules 550 kPa. It is driving under 200 V DC bias voltage and 50 V AC signal voltage.

A DOE with two gratings is fabricated, and characterized for speckle reduction in the
measurement setup as shown in Figure 28. A laser beam illuminates the modulator with
an angle slightly larger than TIR-angles for the polymer/air and the glass/air interfaces.
When voltage is applied, four diffraction patterns appeared sequentially on the first
diffuser, corresponding to M=2
2
states. Photographs of these diffraction patterns are
shown in Figure 29. Simulation of the modulator function to generate diffraction patterns
is done in ZEMAX. As shown in Figure 29, the experimental results agree with
simulations. Output diffraction spots of the modulator are scattered by the first diffuser,
homogenised by the light pipe and illuminated at the second diffuser. The speckle field on
the second diffuser is imaged by the CCD camera.
35

Figure 28. Experiment setup for speckle contrast characterization.

Figure 29. Comparison of multiple diffraction patterns from experiments and simulations.
The speckle field registered by the CCD camera when all gratings are switched off is
shown in Figure 30(a), and the speckle contrast is 0.73; while the speckle filed when four
different diffraction patterns appear during the exposure time (1/32 s) is shown in Figure
30(b) with C = 0.37. Therefore, the speckle contrast reduction is (0.37/0.73) x 100%
51%. The original speckle contrast 0.73 is close to the expected value 1/2
1/2
as it should
be when the narrowband laser is scattered by a depolarizing screen. By tuning on the de-
speckle modulator, N=2
2
number of speckle patterns are generated and detected by the
CCD. According to simulations of the designed DOE, there is no overlapping between
any of the four diffraction patterns, while the experiments demonstrate too that the
overlapping is negligible. Thus the theoretical value of the reduced speckle contrast is
0.73*1/4
0.5
= 0.365, which shows fair agreement with the experiments.

36

Figure 30. Images and sampling of intensity fluctuation of the original speckle (a) and the
reduced speckle (b). The CCD level 256 corresponds to the brightest spot in the speckle pattern,
while 0 corresponds to the darkest spot in the speckle pattern.

2.6 Article VI
G. Ouyang, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, Z. Tong, X. Y. Chen, Laser speckle reduction
based on angular diversity induced by piezoelectric benders, Submitted to IEEE
photonics letters, ,2012.

Motivation:
Besides the DE based modulator, we also look for other speckle reduction techniques.
Piezoelectric materials have been considered as good candidates, because it has stable
performance, cheap and resistance to high temperature. Two piezoelectric benders have
been employed in this work for speckle reduction. By dynamically changing the
illumination angle of the laser beam on diffuser, different speckle patterns are generated
sequentially and smoothed out in the integration time of human eye.
The measured speckle contrast depends on measurement conditions. Many parameters
affect the measured speckle contrast, such as distance between camera and screen, F
number of the lens, settings of the camera, etc. System calibration is necessary to fairly
evaluate the speckle reduction efficiency. Examples of how to determine the
measurement parameters are given both in free space geometry and imaging geometry.
37
Another motivation of this work is to investigate the compound speckle phenomenon
for better understanding of de-speckle method in system level.

Experiments:
The experimental setup to implement speckle reduction in the free space propagation is
shown in Figure 31. He-Ne laser (633 nm) with beam spot size 0.5 mm is employed as
light source. The piezoelectric benders are deposited with thin gold film, which works as
reflective mirrors. Two piezoelectric benders are placed perpendicularly to each other and
driven by 100 V AC voltage. Laser beam is reflected at two benders, and it is steered in
both X and Y directions when the benders are actuated. The moving laser beam is
collected by a condenser lens, and falls on a transmitting diffuser with different angles.
After passing through the diffuser, laser beam propagates in free space and falls on a
CCD sensor, which has pixel size of 5.6 m 5.6 m.

Figure 31. Speckle contrast measurement setup of free space geometry.
Imaging geometry is constructed as shown in Figure 32. Unlike free space geometry,
the scattered light after diffuser 1 is collected and homogenized by a light pipe. Diffuser 2
is placed at the output of the light pipe, to further homogenize the beam. The object,
which is a transparent plastic sheet printed with a letter S, is placed right after diffuser
2. The CCD camera is equipped with an imaging lens.

38

Figure 32. Speckle contrast measurement setup of imaging geometry.

When the piezoelectric benders are actuated, the moving laser beam is focused at a spot
on diffuser via the condenser lens. The spatial position of the laser spots on diffuser
remains the same while the illumination angle is changed. The laser with different
illumination angle generates different speckle patterns, which are averaged out by the
CCD camera during its integrating time. In order to find the suitable measurement
parameters, the system calibration is done based on three criterions: 1). The speckle size
detected in CCD sensor should be at least ten times bigger than with the CCD pixel size,
to avoid the spatial averaging due to CCD pixel. 2). The CCD camera should be operated
in its linear regime. 3). In free space geometry, ideally the original SC is equal to 1
without any de-speckle method applied. In practice, however, the SC should be 1/2
0.5

(0.71) even without the motion of piezoelectric benders, due to the narrowband laser
scattered at a depolarizing screen [46].
In free space geometry, the one dimensional width of speckle is given by z/D [94],
where is the laser wavelength, z is the propagation distance between diffuser and CCD
sensor, D is the diameter of the scattering spot. An approximation is for speckle size is A
c
=
(z/D)
2
[46]. The speckle size is calculated as 63.3 63.3 m, which is big enough to
avoid the CCD spatial averaging. The camera settings and light intensity are adjusted to
make the camera operate in it linear regime and the obtained SC is close to 0.71. The
captured speckle image with and without the actuation of the piezoelectric benders are
shown in Figure 33(a) and Figure 33(b), respectively. The SC is reduced from 0.71 to
0.06.
39
For imaging geometry, the first two criterions as in free space geometry are employed.
The third criterion is not applicable due to compound speckle phenomenon [46]. When
light passes through diffuser 1, and falls on a finite-sized diffuser 2, there is a
compounding of speckle statics. The SC of compound speckle can be bigger than 1. The
speckle generated from diffuser 1 has bigger size, or coarse speckle; while the speckle
generated from diffuser 2 has smaller size, or fine speckle. The fine speckle size is
calculated by [(1+M)F#]
2
[94], where M = f
1
/f
2
is the optical magnification. To
obtain sufficiently large fine speckle, F# and M are set as the maximum value 16 and 2,
respectively. The speckle size is 30.4 m 30.4 m, which is big enough to avoid the
CCD spatial averaging. The captured speckle image with and without the actuation of the
piezoelectric benders are shown in Figure 33(c) and Figure 33(d). The SC is reduced from
0.87 to 0.16. The original SC is 0.87 rather than 0.71, which is due to the compound
speckle phenomenon. In this case, both the fine and coarse speckle is detected by the
CCD sensor. However, the coarse speckle is too big to distinguish. The size of coarse
speckle is calculated size by [(z/D) M]
2
, where z is the propagation distance within the
light pipe. We assume that z is three times longer than the length of light pipe. To observe
the coarse speckle clearly, the optical configuration is adjusted to: M = 6/25. The coarse
speckle size is calculated as 159.5 m 159.5 m. It is clear that the coarse speckle, as
shown in Figure 33(e), is much bigger than the fine speckle, since the letter S is the
same as in Figure 33(c). The coarse speckle is reduced from 0.72 to 0.09 by piezoelectric
benders in imaging geometry.

40

Figure 33. Speckle reduction in free space geometry: (a) original speckle SC=0.71; (b) reduced
speckle SC=0.06. Speckle reduction in imaging geometry with both fine and coarse speckle: (c)
original speckle SC=0.87; (d) reduced speckle SC=0.16. Speckle reduction in imaging geometry
with only coarse speckle: (e) original speckle SC=0.71; reduced speckle SC=0.09.

41
3 Conclusions
Two properties, which are the fast response time and the low driving voltages, have
been focused in PDMS material investigation. By modifying the chain length of linear
PDMS, the cross-linker density and the functionality of cross-linkers, it is found out that
PDMS with highly cross-linked network and minimum residual groups shows fast
response time, but requires high voltage to actuate (Article I). The synthesized PDMS has
response time 9 s and elastic modulus 601 kPa. The SLM, which is based on this type of
PDMS, show response time of 9 s and it is driven by 250V DC and 100 V AC. In order
to reduce the driving voltage requirement of PDMS without substantial increase of the
response time, PDMS network is modified via network swelling (Article II). The ease of
chain movement results in reduced driving voltage requirement. PDMS with 50% solvent
have response time 34 s and elastic modulus 200 kPa. The SLM based on this PDMS
has response time of 35 s and driven by 200 V DC and 60 V AC. In the next step, the
optimization of PDMS is carried out by filling PDMS with TiO
2
nanoparticles (Article
III). The dielectric constant of PDMS-TiO
2
composite increases from 3.0 (neat PDMS) to
4.4 (PDMS with 30 wt% TiO
2
). PDMS modified by adding 5 wt% TiO
2
particles has
response time 6 s, elastic modulus 567 kPa and dielectric constant 3.8. The fabricated
SLM shows response time 6 s and driven by 200 V DC voltage.
A SLM with sandwich structure, that PDMS film is between two metal electrodes, is
proposed (Article I). This SLM shows advantages in light weight and easy fabrication, but
may have reliability issue. An improved SLM with air-gap structure is designed and
demonstrated (Article II). It has better reliability attributed to the absence of the contact
between deformable PDMS and metal top electrodes. An alternate strategy for improving
the reliability of SLM is replacing the metal top electrodes with conductive polymer
(Article IV). The device reliability is achieved due to the improved compatibility between
PDMS and electrodes.
PDMS based de-speckle modulator consists of many dynamic polymer gratings
(Article V). An air-gap structure, similar as the SLM reported in Article II, is applied and
ensures reliability of the modulator. Speckle noise is successfully suppressed to 50%
when two dynamic gratings are used. Another de-speckle device investigated in this work
is piezoelectric benders (Article VI). By varying the incident angle of the illumination
beam with two piezoelectric benders, the speckle noise is reduced to 6%.

42
The investigation and exploring of this research work is valuable from both the DE
material and MEMS modulator points of view. Firstly, measurement setups for polymer
response time and elastic modulus characterization have been constructed. The setups are
possible to re-construct in other labs as substitutes for sophisticated/expensive equipment.
Secondly, the understanding of PDMS electro-mechanical properties with regard to its
micro-structure has been obtained. This is very useful for tuning PDMS to obtain desired
physical properties via chemical methods. Thirdly, the techniques for synthesizing
polymer-particle composite and suppressing particle agglomeration have been described.
This is a guide for further PDMS properties tuning by mixing with other particles.
Fourthly, three SLM with different structures and working principles have been reported.
It gives ideas about how to design a polymer based SLM and how to solve the consequent
issues. Last but not the least, a de-speckle modulator by dynamic polymer gratings have
been demonstrated. It shows advantages in compactness, reliability, lightweight and easy
processing, comparing with existing de-speckle technologies. This point out a new way to
design and manufacture de-speckle modulators by DE technology and MEMS
technology.

43
References
[1] A. O'Halloran, F. O'Malley, and P. McHugh, "A review on dielectric elastomer
actuators, technology, applications, and challenges," Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 104,
pp. 071101-10, 2008.
[2] F. Carpi and D. D. Rossi, "Improvement of electromechanical actuating
performances of a silicone dielectric elastomer by dispersion of titanium dioxide powder,"
Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 12, pp. 835-843, 2005.
[3] R. Pelrine, R. Kornbluh, J. Joseph, R. Heydt, Q. Pei, and S. Chiba, "High-field
deformation of elastomeric dielectrics for actuators," Materials Science and Engineering:
C, vol. 11, pp. 89-100, 2000.
[4] R. D. Kornbluh, R. Pelrine, Q. Pei, S. Oh, and J. Joseph, "Ultrahigh strain response
of field-actuated elastomeric polymers," Newport Beach, CA, USA, 2000, pp. 51-64.
[5] R. Pelrine, R. Kornbluh, Q. Pei, and J. Joseph, "High-Speed Electrically Actuated
Elastomers with Strain Greater Than 100%," Science, vol. 287, pp. 836-839, February 4,
2000 2000.
[6] C. Lwe, X. Zhang, and G. Kovacs, "Dielectric Elastomers in Actuator Technology,"
Advanced Engineering Materials, vol. 7, pp. 361-367, 2005.
[7] L. Petit, B. Guiffard, L. Seveyrat, and D. Guyomar, "Actuating abilities of
electroactive carbon nanopowder/polyurethane composite films," Sensors and Actuators
A: Physical, vol. 148, pp. 105-110, 2008.
[8] P. G. A. Madden, J. D. W. Madden, P. A. Anquetil, N. A. Vandesteeg, and I. W.
Hunter, "The relation of conducting polymer actuator material properties to performance,"
Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of, vol. 29, pp. 696-705, 2004.
[9] W. Ma and L. E. Cross, "An experimental investigation of electromechanical
response in a dielectric acrylic elastomer," Applied Physics A: Materials Science &
Processing, vol. 78, pp. 1201-1204, 2004.
[10] C. Huang, R. Klein, F. Xia, H. Li, Q. M. Zhang, F. Bauer, and Z. Y. Cheng,
"Poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) based high performance electroactive
polymers," Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 11, pp. 299-
311, 2004.

44
[11] S. Guo, X.-Z. Zhao, Q. Zhou, H. L. W. Chan, and C. L. Choy, "High electrostriction
and relaxor ferroelectric behavior in proton-irradiated poly(vinylidene fluoride-
trifluoroethylene) copolymer," Applied Physics Letters, vol. 84, pp. 3349-3351, 2004.
[12] Q. M. Zhang, V. Bharti, and X. Zhao, "Giant electrostriction and relaxor ferroelectric
behavior in electron- irradiated poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) copolymer,"
Science, vol. 280, pp. 2101-2104, 1998.
[13] D. L. Thomsen, P. Keller, J. Naciri, R. Pink, H. Jeon, D. Shenoy, and B. R. Ratna,
"Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Mechanical Properties of a Muscle," Macromolecules,
vol. 34, pp. 5868-5875, 2001/08/01 2001.
[14] C. M. Spillmann, B. R. Ratna, and J. Naciri, "Anisotropic actuation in electroclinic
liquid crystal elastomers," Applied Physics Letters, vol. 90, pp. 021911-3, 2007.
[15] W. Lehmann, H. Skupin, C. Tolksdorf, E. Gebhard, R. Zentel, P. Kruger, M. Losche,
and F. Kremer, "Giant lateral electrostriction in ferroelectric liquid-crystalline
elastomers," Nature, vol. 410, pp. 447-450, 2001.
[16] I. W. Hunter and S. Lafontaine, "A comparison of muscle with artificial actuators,"
in Solid-State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, 1992. 5th Technical Digest., IEEE, 1992,
pp. 178-185.
[17] R. D. Kornbluh, R. Pelrine, Q. Pei, R. Heydt, S. Stanford, S. Oh, and J. Eckerle,
"Electroelastomers: applications of dielectric elastomer transducers for actuation,
generation, and smart structures," San Diego, CA, USA, 2002, pp. 254-270.
[18] K. Asaka, K. Oguro, Y. Nishimura, M. Mizuhata, and H. Takenaka, "Bending of
Polyelectrolyte Membrane–Platinum Composites by Electric Stimuli I. Response
Characteristics to Various Waveforms," Polymer Journal, vol. 27, pp. 436-440, 1995.
[19] S. Nemat-Nasser and Y. Wu, "Comparative experimental study of ionic polymer--
metal composites with different backbone ionomers and in various cation forms," Journal
of Applied Physics, vol. 93, pp. 5255-5267, 2003.
[20] B. J. Akle, M. D. Bennett, and D. J. Leo, "High-strain ionomericionic liquid
electroactive actuators," Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 126, pp. 173-181, 2006.
[21] S. Hara, T. Zama, W. Takashima, and K. Kaneto,
"Tris(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)methide-doped polypyrrole as a conducting polymer
actuator with large electrochemical strain," Synthetic Metals, vol. 156, pp. 351-355, 2006.
[22] B. R.H, "Conducting polymer artificial muscles," Synthetic Metals, vol. 78, pp. 339-
353, 1996.
45
[23] R. Baughman, L. Shacklette, R. Elsenbaumer, E. Pichta, and C. Becht, Conjugated
Polymeric Materials: Opportunities in Electronics, Optoelectronics and Molecular
Electronics. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.
[24] K. Kaneto, M. Kaneko, Y. Min, and A. G. MacDiarmid, "Artificial muscle:
Electromechanical actuators using polyaniline films," Synthetic Metals, vol. 71, pp. 2211-
2212, 1995.
[25] F. Xia, S. Tadigadapa, and Q. M. Zhang, "Electroactive polymer based microfluidic
pump," Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 125, pp. 346-352, 2006.
[26] P. Brochu and Q. Pei, "Advances in Dielectric Elastomers for Actuators and
Artificial Muscles," Macromolecular Rapid Communications, vol. 31, pp. 10-36, 2010.
[27] F. Carpi, G. Gallone, F. Galantini, and D. DeRossi, "SiliconePoly(hexylthiophene)
Blends as Elastomers with Enhanced Electromechanical Transduction Properties,"
Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 18, pp. 235-241, 2008.
[28] I. Krakovsky, T. Romijn, and A. P. de Boer, "A few remarks on the electrostriction
of elastomers," Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 85, pp. 628-629, 1999.
[29] Y. Bar-Cohen, Electroactive Polymer (EAP) Actuators as Artificial Muscles: Reality,
Potential, and Challenges, 2nd ed.: SPIE Publications, 2004.
[30] Q. Pei, R. Pelrine, M. A. Rosenthal, S. Stanford, H. Prahlad, and R. D. Kornbluh,
"Recent progress on electroelastomer artificial muscles and their application for
biomimetic robots," San Diego, CA, USA, 2004, pp. 41-50.
[31] Q. Pei, R. Pelrine, S. Stanford, R. Kornbluh, and M. Rosenthal, "Electroelastomer
rolls and their application for biomimetic walking robots," Synthetic Metals, vol. 135-136,
pp. 129-131, 2003.
[32] P. Qibing, R. Marcus, S. Scott, P. Harsha, and P. Ron, "Multiple-degrees-of-freedom
electroelastomer roll actuators," Smart Materials and Structures, vol. 13, p. N86, 2004.
[33] K. Gabor, L. Patrick, and W. Michael, "An arm wrestling robot driven by dielectric
elastomer actuators," Smart Materials and Structures, vol. 16, p. S306, 2007.
[34] D. M. Bloom, "Grating Light Valve: revolutionizing display technology," 1997, pp.
165-171.
[35] L. J. Hornbeck, "Deformable-mirror spatial light modulator," in Proceedings of
SPIE, 1989, pp. 86-102.
[36] S. Yun, J. Song, I. Yeo, Y. Choi, V. Yurlov, S. An, H. Park, H. Yang, Y. Lee, K.
Han, I. Shyshkin, A. Lapchuk, K. Oh, S. Ryu, J. Jang, C. Park, C. Kim, S. Kim, E. Kim,
K. Woo, J. Yang, E. Kim, J. Kim, S. Byun, S. Lee, O. Lim, J. Cheong, Y. Hwang, G.

46
Byun, J. Kyoung, S. Yoon, J. Lee, T. Lee, S. Hong, Y. Hong, D. Park, J. Kang, W. Shin,
S. Lee, S. Oh, B. Song, H. Kim, C. Koh, Y. Ryu, H. Lee, and Y. Baek, "Spatial optical
modulator (SOM): high-density diffractive laser projection display," San Jose, CA, USA,
2007, pp. 648710-7.
[37] S. Sakarya, G. Vdovin, and P. M. Sarro, "Spatial light modulators based on
micromachined reflective membranes on viscoelastic layers," Sensors and Actuators A:
Physical, vol. 108, pp. 271-275, 2003.
[38] S. Sakarya, G. Vdovin, and P. M. Sarro, "Technology of reflective membranes for
spatial light modulators," Sensors and Actuators, A: Physical, vol. 97-98, pp. 468-472,
2002.
[39] R. Gerhard-Multhaupt, W. Brinker, H. J. Ehrke, W.-D. Molzow, H. Roeder, T. H.
Rosin, and R. Tepe, "Viscoelastic spatial light modulators and schlieren-optical systems
for HDTV projection displays," Santa Clara, CA, USA, 1990, pp. 69-78.
[40] R. Gerhard-Multhaupt, "Thin polymeric layers for spatial light modulators polymeric
Layers." vol. 85, P. Wnsche, Ed., ed: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 1991, pp. 133-142.
[41] W. Brinker, W. Wirges, G. Przyrembel, R. Gerhard-Multhaupt, J. Klemberg-Sapieha,
L. Martinu, D. Poitras, and M. R. Wertheimer, "Metallized viscoelastic control layers for
light-valve projection displays," Displays, vol. 16, pp. 13-20, 1995.
[42] J.-S. Wang, I. W. Jung, and O. Solgaard, "Fabrication method for elastomer spatial
light modulators for short wavelength maskless lithography," Sensors and Actuators A:
Physical, vol. 114, pp. 528-535, 2004.
[43] R. Tepe, "Theoretical analysis of an electrically addressed viscoelastic spatial light
modulator," Journal of the Optical Society of America A, vol. 4, pp. 1273-1282, 1987.
[44] D. Cristea, P. Obreja, M. Kusko, E. Manea, and R. Rebigan, "Polymer
micromachining for micro- and nanophotonics," Materials Science and Engineering C,
vol. 26, pp. 1049-1055, 2006.
[45] H. Kck, W. Doleschal, A. Gehner, W. Grundke, R. Melcher, J. Paufler, R.
Seltmann, and G. Zimmer, "Deformable micromirror devices as phase-modulating high-
resolution light valves," Sensors and Actuators, A: Physical, vol. 54, pp. 536-541, 1996.
[46] J. W. Goodman, Speckle Phenomena in Optics Roberts and Company Publishers,
2006.
[47] L. Wang, T. Tschudi, T. Halldrsson, and P. R. Ptursson, "Speckle Reduction in
Laser Projection Systems by Diffractive Optical Elements," Applied Optics, vol. 37, pp.
1770-1775, 1998.
47
[48] A. Ozcan, A. Bilenca, A. E. Desjardins, B. E. Bouma, and G. J. Tearney, "Speckle
reduction in optical coherence tomography images using digital filtering," J. Opt. Soc.
Am. A, vol. 24, pp. 1901-1910, 2007.
[49] F. Riechert, G. Bastian, and U. Lemmer, "Laser speckle reduction via colloidal-
dispersion-filled projection screens," Appl. Opt., vol. 48, pp. 3742-3749, 2009.
[50] A. A. Andreev, T. B. Andreeva, I. N. Kompanets, M. V. Minchenko, and E. P.
Pozhidaev, "Speckle-noise suppression due to a single ferroelectric liquid-crystal cell,"
Journal of the Society for Information Display, vol. 17, pp. 801-807, 2009.
[51] W. Ha, S. Lee, Y. Jung, J. Kim, and K. Oh, "Speckle reduction in multimode fiber
with a piezoelectric transducer in radial vibration for fiber laser marking and display
applications," San Jose, CA, USA, 2008, pp. 68731V-8.
[52] W.-S. Ha, S.-J. Lee, K.-H. Oh, Y.-M. Jung, and J.-K. Kim, "Speckle Reduction in
Near-field Image of Multimode Fiber with a Piezoelectric Transducer," J. Opt. Soc.
Korea, vol. 12, pp. 126-130, 2008.
[53] J. I. Trisnadi, "Hadamard speckle contrast reduction," Optics Letters, vol. 29, pp. 11-
13, 2004.
[54] S. Lowenthal and D. Joyeux, "Speckle Removal by a Slowly Moving Diffuser
Associated with a Motionless Diffuser," Journal of the Optical Society of America A, vol.
61, pp. 847-851, 1971.
[55] S. C. Shin, S. S. Yoo, S. Y. Lee, C.-Y. Park, S.-Y. Park, J. W. Kwon, and S.-G. Lee,
"Removal of hot spot speckle on laser projection screen using both the running screen and
the rotating diffuser," Displays, vol. 27, pp. 91-96, 2006.
[56] E. G. Rawson, A. B. Nafarrate, R. E. Norton, and J. W. Goodman, "Speckle-free
rear-projection screen using two close screens in slow relative motion," Journal of the
Optical Society of America A, vol. 66, pp. 1290-1294, 1976.
[57] M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, and Z. Tong, "Speckle reduction in line-scan laser
projectors using binary phase codes," Optics Letters, vol. 35, pp. 444-446, 2010.
[58] V. Yurlov, A. Lapchuk, S. Yun, J. Song, and H. Yang, "Speckle suppression in
scanning laser display," Applied Optics, vol. 47, pp. 179-187, 2008.
[59] V. Yurlov, A. Lapchuk, S. Yun, J. Song, I. Yeo, H. Yang, and S. An, "Speckle
suppression in scanning laser displays: aberration and defocusing of the projection
system," Applied Optics, vol. 48, pp. 80-90, 2009.

48
[60] L. Wang, T. Tschudi, M. Boeddinghaus, A. Elbert, T. Halldorsson, and P. Petursson,
"Speckle reduction in laser projections with ultrasonic waves," Optical Engineering, vol.
39, pp. 1659-1664, 2000.
[61] S. An, A. Lapchuk, V. Yurlov, J. Song, H. Park, J. Jang, W. Shin, S. Karpoltsev, and
S. K. Yun, "Speckle suppression in laser display using several partially coherent beams,"
Optics Express, vol. 17, pp. 92-103, 2009.
[62] J. Hadamard, "Rsolution d'une question relative aux dterminants," Bulletin des
Sciences Mathmatiques vol. 17, pp. 240-246, 1893.
[63] V. Kartashov, L. Henriksen, J. H. Ulvensoen, B. Svardal, T. Svortdal, R. Berglind,
and G. Hedin, "Image improvement in a laser projection display with a spatial light
modulator with a deformable polymer," Journal of the Society for Information Display,
vol. 17, pp. 581-587, 2009.
[64] X. Zhang, M. Wissler, B. Jaehne, R. Breonnimann, and G. Kovacs, "Effects of
crosslinking, prestrain, and dielectric filler on the electromechanical response of a new
silicone and comparison with acrylic elastomer," San Diego, CA, USA, 2004, pp. 78-86.
[65] J. P. Szabo, J. A. Hiltz, C. G. Cameron, R. S. Underhill, J. Massey, B. White, and J.
Leidner, "Elastomeric composites with high dielectric constant for use in Maxwell stress
actuators," San Diego, CA, USA, 2003, pp. 180-190.
[66] A. Malthe-srenssen, E. Zimmer, T. Natestad, and B. Jacobson, "Method and device
for variable optical attenuator," US Patent, 2005.
[67] G. Kofod, "Dielectric elastomer actuators," Ph.D Thesis, The Technical University of
Denmark, 2001.
[68] W. Yuan, T. Lam, J. Biggs, L. Hu, Z. Yu, S. Ha, D. Xi, M. K. Senesky, G. Gruner,
and Q. Pei, "New electrode materials for dielectric elastomer actuators," San Diego,
California, USA, 2007, pp. 65240N-12.
[69] K. Doris and H. Hartwig, "Polymers for biomedical applications: improvement of the
interface compatibility " Advances in Polymer Science vol. 149, pp. 1-57, 2000.
[70] B. Marciniec, Comprehensive Handbook on Hydrosilylation Oxford: Pergamon,
1992.
[71] C. U. Ansel and K. F. Saul, Advanced Strength and Applied Elasticity, 4th ed.:
Prentice Hall, 2003.
[72] A. C. C. Esteves, J. Brokken-Zijp, J. Laven, H. P. Huinink, N. J. W. Reuvers, M. P.
Van, and G. de With, "Influence of cross-linker concentration on the cross-linking of
PDMS and the network structures formed," Polymer, vol. 50, pp. 3955-3966, 2009.
49
[73] M. Doi and S. F. Edwards, The Theory of Polymer Dynamics USA Oxford
University Press, 1988.
[74] J. M. G. Cowie and V. Arrighi, Polymers: Chemistry and Physics of Modern
Materials, 3rd ed.: CRC Press, 2007.
[75] G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. Akram, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Optimization of
PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actuation material applied in a MEMS
spatial light modulator," Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing, vol. 103,
pp. 381-388, 2011.
[76] G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Electroactive polymer-based
spatial light modulator with high reliability and fast response speed," Optical
Engineering, vol. 50, pp. 124001-4, 2011.
[77] F. Carpi, G. Gallone, F. Galantini, and D. D. Rossi, "Enhancing the dielectric
permittivity of elastomers," in Dielectric Elastomers as Electromechanical Transducers,
ed Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008.
[78] J. C. Maxwell, in Electricity and Magnetism. vol. 1, ed Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1892, p. 452.
[79] K. W. Wagner, Die Isolierstoffe der Elektrotechnik. Berlin: Springer, 1924.
[80] R. Sillars, Journal Institute of Electrical Engineers, vol. 80, p. 378, 1937.
[81] H. Looyenga, "Dielectric Constants of Heterogeneous Mixtures," Physica, vol. 31
pp. 401-406, 1965.
[82] K. Lichtenecker and K. Rother, "Die Herleitung des Logarithmischen
Mischungsgesetzes aus Allgemeinen Prinzipien der Stationaren Stromung," Physics
Zeitschrift, vol. 32, pp. 255-260, 1931.
[83] L. K. H. v. Beek, "Dielectric behaviour of heterogenous systems," in Progress in
Dielectrics, J. B. Birks, Ed., ed London: Heywood Books, 1967, p. 69.
[84] K. Ren, S. Liu, M. Lin, Y. Wang, and Q. M. Zhang, "A compact electroactive
polymer actuator suitable for refreshable Braille display," Sensors and Actuators A:
Physical, vol. 143, pp. 335-342, 2008.
[85] Y.-M. Chang, L. Wang, and W.-F. Su, "Polymer solar cells with poly(3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene) as transparent anode," Organic Electronics, vol. 9, pp. 968-973,
2008.
[86] A. Denneulin, A. Blayo, J. Bras, and C. Neuman, "PEDOT:PSS coating on specialty
papers: Process optimization and effects of surface properties on electrical performances,"
Progress in Organic Coatings, vol. 63, pp. 87-91, 2008.

50
[87] M. E. Vlachopoulou, P. S. Petrou, S. E. Kakabakos, A. Tserepi, and E. Gogolides,
"High-aspect-ratio plasma-induced nanotextured poly(dimethylsiloxane) surfaces with
enhanced protein adsorption capacity," Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B:
Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, vol. 26, pp. 2543-2548, 2008.
[88] M. T. Khorasani, H. Mirzadeh, and S. Irani, "Plasma surface modification of poly (l-
lactic acid) and poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) films for improvement of nerve cells
adhesion," Radiation Physics and Chemistry, vol. 77, pp. 280-287, 2008.
[89] S. K. iseth, A. Krozer, B. Kasemo, and J. Lausmaa, "Surface modification of spin-
coated high-density polyethylene films by argon and oxygen glow discharge plasma
treatments," Applied Surface Science, vol. 202, pp. 92-103, 2002.
[90] M. E. Vlachopoulou, P. S. Petrou, S. E. Kakabakos, A. Tserepi, K. Beltsios, and E.
Gogolides, "Effect of surface nanostructuring of PDMS on wetting properties,
hydrophobic recovery and protein adsorption," Microelectronic Engineering, vol. 86, pp.
1321-1324, 2009.
[91] C. AB, "COMSOL Multiphysics Model Library: 3D Cantilever Beam,," ed, 2007.
[92] S. L. Lai, M. Y. Chan, M. K. Fung, C. S. Lee, and S. T. Lee, "Concentration effect of
glycerol on the conductivity of PEDOT film and the device performance," Materials
Science and Engineering B: Solid-State Materials for Advanced Technology, vol. 104, pp.
26-30, 2003.
[93] Y. H. Ha, N. Nikolov, S. K. Pollack, J. Mastrangelo, B. D. Martin, and R.
Shashidhar, "Towards a Transparent, Highly Conductive Poly(3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene)," Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 14, pp. 615-
622, 2004.
[94] G. Cloud, "Optical Methods in Experimental Mechanics," Experimental
Techniques, vol. 34, pp. 15-19, 2010.
51
Article I

G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. Akram, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Optimization of
PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actuation material applied in a
MEMS spatial light modulator," Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing,
Vol. 103, Issue. 2, pp. 381-388, 2011.

Appl Phys A
DOI 10.1007/s00339-011-6348-6
Optimization of PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive
actuation material applied in a MEMS spatial light modulator
G. Ouyang K. Wang M.N. Akram L. Henriksen
X.Y. Chen
Received: 11 October 2010 / Accepted: 10 February 2011
Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract The cross-linked networks of linear vinyl-termi-
nated poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) with trimethylsiloxy-
terminated methyhydrosiloxanedimethylsiloxane copoly-
mer (cross-linker) were investigated by tuning the cross-
linker concentration, the chain length of linear PDMS and
the functionality of the cross-linker. Response time and
elastic modulus of the cross-linked PDMS elastomer were
characterized by home-made measurement systems and an-
alyzed based on their network topologies. An optimized
PDMS elastomer, which has response time of 9 s and elas-
tic modulus of 601 kPa, was utilized as the actuation mater-
ial in a MEMS spatial light modulator (SLM). The fabrica-
tion processes were described. This polymer based SLM has
shown fast response time (9 s) and successfully diffracted
light into higher orders with 84% rst-order diffraction ef-
ciency.
G. Ouyang K. Wang M.N. Akram X.Y. Chen ()
Vestfold University College, RI, Raveien 197, Borre 3184,
Norway
e-mail: xuyuan.chen@hive.no
Fax: +47-33031100
G. Ouyang
e-mail: guo@hive.no
K. Wang
e-mail: kaiying.wang@hive.no
M.N. Akram
e-mail: Muhammad.N.Akram@hive.no
L. Henriksen
poLight AS, Horten 3179, Norway
e-mail: lars@polight.com
1 Introduction
Polymer has promising features in applications such as
MEMS actuators and modulators, attributed to its light-
weight, easy fabrication and low production cost. In these
applications, the most important performance of the poly-
mer is the mechanical deformation under electric force,
which is characterized by the response time and the sensi-
tivity. When the polymer is applied in a spatial light mod-
ulator (SLM) as actuation material, fast response time and
high sensitivity are always preferred to achieve high mod-
ulation efciency of light. Several polymers have been in-
vestigated as candidate materials in the SLMs, for exam-
ple, polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) [1], SU-8 [2] and
P(VDF-TrFE) based terpolymer [3]. However, the slow re-
sponse is the biggest technical obstacle which limits the
practical application of polymer based modulators.
Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) is one of the most im-
portant polymers with unique properties, such as elastic-
ity, durability, and resistance to high temperature, UV ra-
diation and chemical attack [4]. These properties make the
cross-linked PDMS suitable for a wide range of applica-
tions, such as in mechanic devices [5], in electrical/optical
devices [68] and in biomedical devices [911]. More im-
portantly, the response time and sensitivity of the PDMS
elastomer (cross-linked PDMS) can be tuned by modify-
ing its network topology. Therefore it is a promising can-
didate for SLMs. The theory of PDMS elasticity has been
well established [1214]. Normally, the PDMS elastomer
has three-dimensional networks, which are formed by hy-
drosilylation reaction. The physical-mechanical properties
of the elastomer depend on the cross-linked network struc-
ture and the residual chemical groups. Therefore, it is of
great interest to understand and control polymer network
topology for PDMS material engineering.
G. Ouyang et al.
Scheme 1 Hydrosilylation
reaction
Fig. 1 Diagram of the response
time measurements.
(a) Measurement setup;
(b) applied AC voltage and
detected light intensity. The
response time is dened as the
time required for the light
intensity to rise (fall) from 10%
(90%) to 90% (10%) of its peak
value
In this work, vinyl-terminated linear PDMS were cross-
linked through hydrosilylation reaction by multifunctional
cross-linkers in the presence of platinum complex catalyst.
The aim is to synthesis PDMS material which has fast re-
sponse time and high sensitivity. The sensitivity was indi-
cated by the elastic modulus for this application. PDMS with
different network topologies were prepared, by changing the
concentration of the cross-linker, the chain length of the lin-
ear PDMS, and the cross-linker functionality, one at a time,
with other parameters xed. A PDMS elastomer with opti-
mized network structure was successfully synthesized and
further fabricated as the actuation material in a SLM. Com-
paring with other polymers [13], this modulator had simi-
lar sensitivity under applied electric force while the response
time was signicantly improved.
2 Experimental
2.1 Materials
Linear vinyl-terminated poly(dimethylsiloxane) with mole-
cular weight from 800 g/mol to 62,700 g/mol and cross-
linkers, which are trimethylsiloxy-terminated methy-
hydrosiloxanedimethylsiloxane copolymer, were purchased
from Gelest, Inc. The cross-linking process was catalyzed
by platinum complex previously dissolved in xylene, which
were from UCT Specialties, LLC, at room temperature.
Hydrosilylation reaction has been commonly used to pre-
pare PDMS elastomer [15], in which two vinyl groups of
the linear PDMS react with silane groups of the cross-linker
forming a three-dimensional cross-linked network. This re-
action is expressed in Scheme 1.
The rate of the reaction and properties of the formed
PDMS elastomer depend on several parameters, e.g. the
functionality and concentration of the cross-linker, the mole-
cular weight of the linear PDMS, the curing tempera-
ture and the catalyst. In this work, methyhydrosiloxane-
dimethylsiloxane copolymer was added to vinyl-terminated
linear PDMS. After stirring for approximately 2 min,
0.1 wt% platinum complex catalyst was added. Then the
mixture was intensively stirred for 30 s and cured in air at
room temperature.
2.2 Measurement setups
Two properties of the PDMS elastomer, which are the
response time and the elastic modulus, were focused in
this work and characterized by home-made measuring sys-
tems.
The response time is in a range of micro-seconds, which
was measured by a system equipped with a laser and a
photo-detector [16], as shown in Fig. 1. In this measurement
setup, the testing PDMS (20 m thin lm) was deposited
on a prism coated with a transparent indium tin oxide (ITO)
layer. A metal needle was suspended 5 m above the PDMS
lm and its position was controlled precisely by a control
stage. During measurements, a laser illuminated the PDMS
on the prism. If no voltage was applied, the PDMS had a
at surface and the incident laser was totally reected from
PDMS/air interface, which was further blocked by a stopper.
Once the voltage was applied between the ITO layer and the
needle, a small spot on the PDMS (the area under the nee-
dle) experienced an electric force and started to deform. The
deformation led to light diffraction and scattering, which
was detected by the photo-detector. Using this method, the
dynamic deformation of the PDMS was represented as the
changing light intensity detected by the photo-detector. The
plots in Fig. 1 show how the detected signal changed with
regard to the applied 300 V plus voltage with 1 ms width.
Optimization of PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actuation material applied in a MEMS
Fig. 2 Diagram of the elastic
modulus measurements.
(a) Measurement setup; (b) the
calculated elastic modulus based
on the relationship between h
3/2
and F
When the pulse front came, the PDMS had a rapid defor-
mation and then moved slowly to the maximum value. The
similar behavior was observed when the pulse was released.
The response time can be then extracted from the prole of
detected light intensity. This measurement setup has been
proved to be very effective and accurate in the evaluation of
the response time of polymers [16]. It provides rich infor-
mation on the response behavior of polymer material over
a wide range of frequencies (1 Hz1 GHz). However, it
should be kept in mind that several factors may inuence the
measurement accuracy, e.g. capacitance between the needle
and PDMS surface, the resistance of the ITO layer and the
rise/fall time of the function generator. The time lag intro-
duced by these factors was calculated in a range of nano-
seconds in this work, which is therefore neglected.
An accurate and convenient measurement system was
constructed to measure the elastic modulus of the synthe-
sized PDMS, as shown in Fig. 2. In this setup, a metal probe
with sphere indenter was xed with a high precision load
cell. The probe was controlled to move perpendicular to the
PDMS surface by a control stage. The elastic modulus was
obtained based on Hertz equations [17]:
1
2
p
E
p
+
1
2
p
E
i
=
4h
3
2
3F
1
R
p
1
R
i
1
2
(1)
where E
p
, E
i
,
p
,
i
, R
p
, R
i
are the elastic modulus, Pois-
sons ratio, radius of the contact surface of the testing poly-
mer and the indenter, respectively; F is the contact force
from the indenter; h is the indentation depth. In this case,
a sphere indenter, which has R
i
equal to 1 mm, is pressed
onto a PDMS plane, which has R
p
as innity. The Pois-
son ratio
p
of PDMS is 0.5. The indenter is made of ruby,
which has an elastic modulus E
i
around 300 GPa. Since E
i
is much bigger than E
p
, it is considered as innity. Equation
(1) is then rewritten as
1
E
p
=
16
9F
R
1
2
i
h
3
2
(2)
In (2), there was a linear relationship between h
3/2
and F.
By moving the probe and recording the contact force, the
relationship between the indentation depth and the force can
be found, as plotted in Fig. 2. The gradient K, which is ob-
tained by linear tting the plots using least square method,
was equal to 9/(16R
1/2
i
E
p
), from which the E
p
can be cal-
culated.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Inuence of the cross-linker concentration
The inuence of the cross-linker concentration on PDMS
response time and elastic modulus was investigated. Lin-
ear PDMS with molecular weight equal to 9400 g/mol, was
mixed with the cross-linker, which has functionality 4.8,
molecular weight 1950 g/mol. The response time and elas-
tic modulus of synthesized PDMS elastomer with different
cross-linker concentrations are shown in Table 1.
It is observed that a gel-like elastomer can be formed
within 4% and 65% weight percent of cross-linker, which
are dened as the upper and lower critical gel point, re-
spectively. With increase of the cross-linker concentra-
tion, the response time of the PDMS elastomer decreases
(A2A4), reaches the minimum point (A5), and then
increases (A6A8). The change of the response time
is attributed to the change of network topology. While
cross-linker concentration was 10%, a fastest PDMS elas-
tomer (9 s) was obtained, indicating that an ideal three-
dimensional cross-linked network was formed, with min-
imum dangling or pendant chains. This network can re-
spond to the applied force rapidly. Besides this point, less
or more cross-linker lead to defectiveness of the network,
therefore slow down the response. According to the exper-
iments, a perfect network was not formed when the num-
ber of function groups of cross-linker (SiH) were equal to
that of the linear PDMS (C=C), but was achieved in the
presence of extra SiH groups. This is attributed to oxida-
tion/hydrolysis side reactions of SiH groups (the reaction
formula is expressed as (3) and (4)), via reaction with other
G. Ouyang et al.
Table 1 Dependences of
response time and elastic
modulus on cross-linker
concentration
A gel-like elastomer cannot be
formed; The response time
was impossible to measure since
the polymer was extremely
sticky and soft
Samples Cross-linker
concentration
C=C:SiH Response time
(s)
Elastic modulus
(kPa)
Curing time
(min)
A1 3% 1:0.4
A2 4% 1:0.5 11,200 8 84
A3 5% 1:0.6 980 32 63
A4 8% 1:1.0 65 278 41
A5 10% 1:1.2 9 601 22
A6 20% 1:2.4 100 481 6
A7 40% 1:4.8 700 122 2
A8 45% 1:5.3 800 79 2
A9 60% 1:7.1 3 1
A10 65% 1:7.7 1 1
A11 67% 1:8.0
compounds such as oxygen and moisture [18].
2RSiH+O
2
Catalyst
2RSiOH (3)
RSiH+H
2
O
Catalyst
RSiOH+H
2
(4)
From Table 1, the response time increases signicantly
with the presence of extra linear PDMS (A2, A3), while the
increase rate of the response time with extra cross-linker
(A6, A7, A8) is slower as compare to the former. This is
because the chain length of the linear PDMS (molecular
weight = 9400 g/mol) is much longer than the cross-linker
(molecular weight = 1950 g/mol). The dangling or pendant
long chains respond slower to the applied force than that
of shot chains, and thus signicantly increase the response
time.
The elastic modulus of the cross-linked polymer is also
changed with the concentration of the cross-linker, due to
the changed network topology. A hardest elastomer is ob-
tained when a perfect three-dimensional network is formed,
while any defectiveness of the network decreases the elas-
tic modulus. From Table 1, the elastic modulus is inversely
proportional to the response time. The results agree with the
VoigtKelvin model [19].
The curing time of the cross-linked PDMS decreases with
the increase of the cross-linker concentration, indicating that
no matter the perfectness of the formed network, additional
cross-linker always increase the curing speed.
3.2 Inuence of the linear PDMS chain length
The inuence of the linear PDMS chain length to the
physical-mechanical properties of the PDMS elastomer
was studied. Linear PDMS with molecular weight from
800 g/mol (short chain) to 62,700 g/mol (long chain) were
mixed by cross-linker with molecular weight 1950 g/mol
and functionality 4.8. The molar ratio of function groups
between linear PDMS (C=C) and cross-linker (SiH) was
xed at 1:1.2 to ensure an ideal network. The response time
and elastic modulus of the formed PDMS elastomers are
shown in Table 2.
It can be observed in Table 2 that the response time in-
creases from 5 to 500 s with increasing molecular weight.
It is attributed to the increased chain lengths between the
cross-linking sites. In another words, the cross-link den-
sity is lower with increased chain length of linear PDMS
(the cross-link density is dened as the averaged number of
cross-links per unit volume), and polymer with lower cross-
link density is slower.
It is worth to mention that when long chain linear PDMS
mixed with cross-linker, the long-range chain-chain inter-
actions, called chain entanglements, dominated the poly-
mer network. The consequence of the entanglements domi-
nation (B4, B5) is the signicantly increase response time. It
is explained thus: the entanglements forms a tube that re-
stricts the lateral movement of chains and allows one dimen-
sional diffusion in the tube as a mechanism for relaxation.
The relaxation of these trapped entanglements is a relative
slow process via a sliding motion of the chains along each
other [20]. In applications, where a fast response time is de-
sired, the linear PDMS with short chains is a better choice
to form a cross-linking dominated PDMS network.
3.3 Inuence of the cross-linker functionality
Trimethylsiloxy-terminated methyhydrosiloxanedimethyl-
siloxane copolymer with different number of SiH groups
per chain was mixed with vinyl-terminated linear PDMS
with molecular weight 9400 g/mol. The molar ratio of C=C
and SiH was xed at 1:1.2 to form an ideal network. The
corresponding response time and elastic modulus of the
cross-linked PDMS are listed in Table 3.
With the decrease of cross-linker functionality (C1C4),
the cross-link density is smaller, therefore a slower and
modulus on linear PDMS chain
length
formed
of linear PDMS
(g/mol)
Response time
(s)
Elastic modulus
(kPa)
Curing time
(min)
B1 800
B2 6000 5 712 28
B3(A5) 9400 9 601 22
B4 28,000 190 380 7
B5 62,700 500 175 1
modulus on the functionality of
cross-linker
formed
of cross-linker
(g/mol)
Functionality
of cross-linker
Response time
(s)
Elastic modulus
(kPa)
Curing time
(min)
C1 1050 9.2 8 781 2
C2 1950 8.9 8 697 2
C3 (A5, B3) 1950 4.8 9 601 22
C4 1950 2.2 200 79 48
C5 1950 1.1
Table 4 Contributions of
chemical cross-links and
entanglements to the elastic
modulus
Samples Elastic modulus
(kPa)
Contribution
from chemical
cross-links
(kPa)
Contribution
from
entanglements
(kPa)
Percentage
of entangle-
ments
contribution
B2 712 689 23 3%
B3(C3) 601 440 161 27%
B4 380 148 232 61%
B5 175 66 109 62%
C1 781 592 189 24%
C2 697 584 113 16%
C4 79 69 10 12%
softer PDMS was obtained. Moreover, the relationship be-
tween response time and elastic modulus show agreement
with the VoigtKelvin model. The curing time of the
cross-linked PDMS increases with the decreased function-
ality of the cross-linker, as expected. For sample C5, the
cross-linker is nearly monofunctional. In this case, a three-
dimensional network cannot be formed.
3.4 Inuence of entanglements
Many efforts have been made to investigate the inuence of
the entanglements on physical-mechanical properties of the
cross-linked PDMS [2022]. In the case of small polymer
deformation, a phenomenological equation, which was de-
veloped by Langley [21], Dossin and Graessley [22], can be
used to calculate the contribution of entanglements to the
elastic modulus [14].
G=
1
2
f

M
RT +G
0
N
T
E
(5)
where Gis the shear modulus equal to E/3 in the case of the
incompressible polymer, f is the functionality of the cross-
linker, is the density, M is the molecular weight, R is the
gas constant, T is the temperature, G
0
N
is the plateau mod-
ulus of the melt of uncross-linked polymer and T
E
is the
trapping factor. The rst term in (5) is the modulus con-
tributed from chemical cross-links, while the second term is
from entanglements. Based on this model, the contribution
of cross-links to the elastic modulus was calculated. Using
the measured elastic modulus, the contribution of entangle-
ments was obtained from (5), as shown in Table 4.
The contribution of entanglement to elastic modulus be-
come obvious when long chain linear PDMS were cross-
G. Ouyang et al.
Fig. 3 A PDMS based SLM.
(a) Schematic drawing of the
SLM structure;
(b) manufactured SLM chip;
(c) cross-section of the SLM
and electrical connection
linked. For sample B2, B3(C3), C1, C2 and C4 the elas-
tic modulus is mostly determined by chemical cross-links,
while for sample B4 and B5, entanglements start to dom-
inate the polymer network. Among all entanglements in
polymer network, only the fraction of entanglements be-
tween elastically active chains, called the trapped entan-
glements, contributes to the elastic modulus [20]. The in-
creased percentage of the entanglements contribution indi-
cates an increased fraction of the trapped entanglements.
These trapped entanglements slow down the polymer re-
sponse to the applied force, as discussed previously. There-
fore, a trapped entanglements dominated polymer is much
slower than a cross-link dominated PDMS. These results
agreed with the discussion in Sect. 3.2: an abrupt response
time increase was observed when the molecular weight of
linear PDMS reached 28,000 g/mol.
To conclude, PDMS elastomer formed by short chain
vinyl-terminated PDMS cross-linking with high function-
ality cross-linker has fastest response under electric force.
Hence such polymer is a good candidate for polymer based
modulators. In the next section, the PDMS elastomer was
applied as the actuation material in a SLM, by cross-linking
the vinyl-terminated PDMS, which has molecular weight
9400 g/mol, with the cross-linker functionality 4.8.
4 Application of the optimized PDMS in spatial light
modulator
Spatial light modulator is a widely used device for modify-
ing the optical wavefront properties in projection displays,
printing and optical communications. In this work, a fast and
sensitive PDMS, which has intrinsic response time 9 s and
elastic modulus 601 kPa, was applied as the actuation mate-
rial in a SLM.
The SLM was successfully fabricated using microma-
chining technology. First, a 250 nm thick titaniumtungsten
adhesion layer was sputtered on a glass substrate. After-
wards, a 150 nm thick gold layer was sputtered on the
titaniumtungsten layer. These two layers were then pat-
terned as interdigital bottom electrodes by reactive ion etch-
ing and wet etching, respectively. Afterwards, the synthe-
sized PDMS was deposited by spin coating to form a lm
with thickness of 4 m. Finally, a 50 nm thick gold lm was
deposited on the PDMS by sputtering, which worked both
as an electrode and reective mirror. The schematic draw-
ing as well as the fabricated SLM are shown in Figs. 3a, 3b.
The top gold lm had a continuous reective surface. This
mirror-like surface is necessary to ensure good light modu-
lation efciency.
The working principle of this SLM have been described
in previous publication [23]. In brief, grating can be gen-
erated on polymer surface by applying voltage through the
top gold lm and bottom interdigital electrodes, as shown
in Fig. 3c. Incident light illuminated at the grating and dif-
fracted into higher orders. By selectively picking/blocking
these orders, the intensity of the light can be modulated.
Performances of the SLM depend on both PDMS properties
and structure dimensions. The following design parameters
of the SLM were obtained from nite element method sim-
ulations in COMSOL targeting a relatively big relief depth
of PDMS: PDMS thickness 4 m; period of gold electrodes
in a range of 50 m to 100 m, size of the chip 20 12 mm.
When no voltage is applied, the polymer surface is at,
reecting incoming light as a mirror; while the driving volt-
age is applied, a sinusoidal grating is formed on PDMS/Au
surface, diffracting incoming light into many higher orders.
Surface topographies of the SLM was measured and recon-
structed by an interferometer in these two cases, as shown
in Fig. 4. In order to achieve a large relief depth, 250 V
DC voltage and 100 V AC voltage was applied to the top
and bottomelectrodes, respectively. The peak-to-peak defor-
mation was 170 nm, giving 84% rst-order diffraction ef-
ciency at 635 nm wavelength. Higher diffraction efciency
can be achieved by apply higher voltage or choose a softer
Fig. 4 Surface topography of
the top gold. (a) A at surface
with roughness 1.2 nm was
observed when no driving
voltage was applied;
(b) a sinusoidal grating was
formed when driving voltage
was applied
Fig. 5 Output light of the SLM. (a) Reected light; (b) diffracted light
PDMS elastomer. By utilize the grating, incident light was
diffracted into higher orders, as observed in Fig. 5. The re-
sponse time was 9 s, which was exactly the same as the in-
trinsic response time of the PDMS, indicating that the time
lag in the circuit is negligible. Comparing with other poly-
mer based SLMs, which have response time 4 ms [2], 2 ms
[24], 1 ms [23], our SLM is much faster thanks to the opti-
mized PDMS network. The faster response of the SLMgives
many advantages in its practical applications. For example,
the efciency can be improved in date storage applications;
the motion-blur of fast moving objects in action scenes can
be eliminated in display applications.
5 Conclusions
A fast response and sensitive PDMS elastomer was syn-
thesized by cross-linking vinyl-terminated linear PDMS
with methyhydrosiloxane-dimethylsiloxane copolymer at
the function group ratio C=C:SiH=1:1.2. The presence
of extra SiH function group was necessary due to in-
evitable oxidation/hydrolysis side reactions. Linear PDMS
with shorter chain length or cross-linker with more func-
tion groups per volume created a denser polymer network
which showed faster response time and higher elastic mod-
ulus. The relationship between response time and elastic
modulus can be roughly tted to VoigtKelvin model. The
inuence of the entanglements became obvious in the poly-
mer network when the molecular weight of linear PDMS
reached 28,000 g/mol.
The optimized PDMS elastomer with intrinsic response
time 9 s and elastic modulus 601 kPa was utilized as the ac-
tuation material in a SLM. Under the applied electric force,
the surface of elastomer was deformed, forming a sinusoidal
grating. The grating successfully diffracted light into higher
orders with 84% rst-order diffraction efciency. Compar-
ing with other technologies, the SLM fabricated using our
PDMS elastomer has shown signicant improvement in re-
sponse time.
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to Dr. V. Kartashov
for fruitful discussions. This research work is funded by the Research
Council of Norway under grant BIA-286 project number 182667.
References
1. H.P. Pham, V.D. Dao, S. Amaya, R. Kitada, Y. Li, S. Sugiyama,
IEEJ Trans. Sens. Micromach. 126(7), 306311 (2006)
2. T. Aida, Y. Habu, T. Kato, Proc. SPIE 6993, 699301699308
(2008)
3. D.Y. Jeong, E.K. Hong, J. Korean Phys. Soc. 48(2), 229232
(2006)
G. Ouyang et al.
4. S.J. Clarson, J.A. Semlyen, Siloxane Polymers (Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice Hall, 1993)
5. D.-W. Lee, Y.-S. Choi, Microelectron. Eng. 85(56), 10541058
(2008)
6. Y.J. Chuang, T.H. Liao, P.R. Chen, K.Y. Hung, J. Micromech. Mi-
croeng. 20(8), 129901 (2010)
7. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M.N. Akram, X.Y. Chen,
Sens. Actuators A, Phys. 158(2), 313319 (2010)
8. G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, M.N. Akram, K. Wang, V. Kartashov, X. Yan,
X. Chen, Opt. Lett. 35(17), 28522854 (2010)
9. S.M. Azmayesh-Fard, E. Flaim, J.N. McMullin, J. Micromech.
Microeng. 20(8) (2010)
10. T. Fujii, Microelectron. Eng. 6162, 907914 (2002)
11. K.S. Phillips, K.M. Kang, L. Licata, N.L. Allbritton, Lab. Chip.
10(7), 864870 (2010)
12. M.A. Llorente, J.E. Mark, Macromolecules 13(3), 681685
(1980)
13. J.E. Mark, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 92(25), 72527257 (1970)
14. S.K. Patel, S. Malone, C. Cohen, J.R. Gillmor, R.H. Colby, Macro-
molecules 25(20), 52415251 (1992)
15. B. Marciniec, Comprehensive Handbook on Hydrosilylation
(Pergamon, Oxford, 1992)
16. L.Z. Rogovina, V.G. Vasilev, G.L. Slonimskii, M.V. Sobolevskii,
P.V. Ivanov, Mech. Compos. Mater. 29(3), 307313 (1993)
17. A.C. Ugural, S.K. Fenster, Advanced Strength and Applied Elas-
ticity, 4th edn. (Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, 2003)
18. A.C.C. Esteves, J. Brokken-Zijp, J. Laven, H.P. Huinink,
N.J.W. Reuvers, M.P. Van, G. de With, Polymer 50(16), 3955
3966 (2009)
19. J.M.G. Cowie, V. Arrighi, Polymers: Chemistry and Physics of
Modern Materials, 3rd edn. (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2007)
20. M. Doi, S.F. Edwards, The Theory of Polymer Dynamics (Claren-
don, Oxford, 1999)
21. N.R. Langley, Macromolecules 1(4), 348352 (1968)
22. L.M. Dossin, W.W. Graessley, Macromolecules 12(1), 123130
(1979)
23. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M.N. Akram, X.Y. Chen, Proc. SPIE 7426,
742601742604 (2009)
24. R. Pelrine, R. Kornbluh, J. Joseph, R. Heydt, Q.B. Pei, S. Chiba,
Mater. Sci. Eng., C, Biomim. Mater., Sens. Syst. 11(2), 89100
(2000)

52
Article II

G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, and X. Chen, "Electroactive polymer-based
spatial light modulator with high reliability and fast response speed," Optical
Engineering, Vol. 50, No. 124001, 2011.

Optical Engineering 50(12), 124001 (December 2011)
Electroactive polymer-based spatial light modulator
with high reliability and fast response speed
Guangmin Ouyang
Kaiying Wang
Vestfold University College
Raveien 197
Horten, 3179, Norway
E-mail: Guo@hive.no
Lars Henriksen
PoLight AS
Xuyuan Chen
Vestfold University College
Raveien 197
Abstract. An electroactive polymer (EAP)-based MOEMS spatial light
modulator (SLM), which shows high reliability and fast response speed,
is reported in this work. The reliability is achieved by designing the SLM
without direct contact between electrodes and deformable EAP surface;
while the fast response speed is obtained by optimizing the microstructure
of the EAP material. The concept of SLM, material optimization approach,
fabrication processes, as well as characterization methods, are described.
The SLM is driven by relatively low voltage, which is 200 V dc and 60 V
ac and the response time is 35 s. The manufactured SLM shows no
degradation or breakdown after millions of actuation cycles, indicating
a good reliability of the device. C
2011 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation
Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.3659216]
Subject terms: spatial light modulators; polymers; micro-optics; diffractive optical
elements.
Paper 110937RR received Aug. 5, 2011; revised manuscript received Oct. 11,
2011; accepted for publication Oct. 19, 2011; published online Dec. 5, 2011.
1 Introduction
A spatial light modulator (SLM) is a device that imposes
spatially-varying modulation on a beam of light. Many dif-
ferent of SLMs have been commercialized, such as grating
light valve,
1
digital micromirror device,
2
and spatial optical
modulator.
3
These devices are all based on silicon technol-
ogy. Organic materials, for example electroactive polymers
(EAPs), are promising alternates for SLMs. EAPs have many
desirable features, e.g., lightweight, durability, easy fabrica-
tion, and low production cost.
4
It has been utilized in many
optical devices such as tunable gratings,
5
micro-optical zoom
lens,
6
optical attenuators,
7
and spatial light modulators.
8
In
EAP-based SLMs, gratings, which are formed by EAP ma-
terial under electric eld, are used to modulate the light. The
electric eld induced strain is either generated fromMaxwell
stress, arising fromCoulomb electrostatic interactions among
free charges on electrodes, or from the electrostrictive stress,
arising from strain-induced permittivity change of the mate-
rial, or both. Currently, several technical obstacles limit the
practical applications of EAP-based SLMs. First, to drive the
EAP under an electric eld, a sandwich structure, in which
the EAP is between two electrodes, is commonly employed.
At least one of the electrodes has to comply with the defor-
mation of the EAP. Such electrodes suffer from reliability
problems due to fatigue and creep, not to mention that the
electrodes themselves mechanically constrain the deforma-
tion of the EAP. Second, due to the viscoelastic property
of polymers, the EAP-based devices normally have slow
response speed (in the range of milliseconds to seconds).
Finally, a high driving voltage, typically on the order of kilo-
volts, is required to drive the devices.
9
In order to improve the performance of an EAP-based
spatial light modulator, the SLM structures were designed
to avoid direct contact between the deformable EAP surface
and electrodes. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was used as
the EAP material and it was optimized to have a fast response
0091-3286/2011/$25.00 C 2011 SPIE
speed and high sensitivity by swelling of its network. The
fast response speed of the PDMS resulted in higher SLM
modulation efciency, while the high sensitivity of PDMS
lowered the requirement of driving voltages.
2 PDMS Processing and Characterization
The property of the PDMS is determined by its microstruc-
ture. PDMS elastomer has a three-dimensional cross-linked
network, formed by linear vinyl-terminated PDMS reacting
with multifunctional cross-linker. To obtain both the response
speed and sensitivity, the PDMS networks were swollen by
solvents. First, the linear PDMS and the cross-linker were
mixed by manual stirring for 3 min. The molar ratio between
function groups of linear PDMS and cross-linkers were set
as 1:1.2 to achieve a PDMS network with minimum dan-
gling or pendant chains.
10
Second, silicon oil (solvent) with
molecular weight around 700 was added into the PDMS so-
lution to swell the PDMS network. Samples with solvent
concentration varying from 0% to 90% were prepared and
characterized. Third, a catalyst was added into the mixture,
followed by stirring thoroughly for 5 min. Finally, the sam-
ples were de-bubbled in room temperature and cured in an
oven at 60
C.
The dependence of response time and elastic modulus of
swollen PDMS on solvent concentration are plotted in Fig. 1.
The unswollen (0% solvent concentration) PDMS had a re-
sponse time of 9 s and elastic modulus 601 kPa. This high
elastic modulus and fast response time indicated a rigid struc-
ture which was formed by a tightly cross-linked network. Due
to the high elastic modulus, the sensitivity of the PDMS was
relativelylow, i.e., highvoltage was requiredtodrive the EAP.
By introducing a short chain miscible solvent into PDMS, the
polymer network was swollen. Because the polymer chains
were surrounded by highly mobile solvents, the chain move-
ment was promoted. The ease of chain movement resulted in
the decrease of elastic modulus, meaning a promoted sensi-
tivity. Meanwhile, the response time of PDMS increased, but
this effect was rather moderate. To showthe advantage of this
Optical Engineering December 2011/Vol. 50(12) 124001-1
Ouyang et al.: Electroactive polymer-based spatial light modulator. . .
Fig. 1 Response time and elastic modulus of swollen PDMS with regard to solvent concentration.
optimization method, the properties of PDMS via network
swelling were compared with Ref. 10, in which the PDMS
properties were tuned by modifying the cross-link density.
As shown in Fig. 2, in order to obtain a PDMS with similar
response time, the PDMS tuned by network swelling had a
much higher sensitivity. The improvement was attributed to
less trapped entanglements between polymer networks.
10
3 Electroactive Polymer-Based Spatial
Light Modulator
The optimized PDMS, which had an intrinsic response time
of 34 s and elastic modulus 200 kPa, was applied to fabricate
a SLM. The structure of the SLMas well as the electrical con-
nections is shown in Fig. 3. The PDMS lm is deposited on
the transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) top electrode, which
is coated on the prism. There is an air gap between the inter-
Fig. 2 Comparison of response time and elastic modulus of PDMS
between this work (PDMS tuned by network swelling) and Ref. 10
(PDMS tuned by cross-link density modifying).
digital bottom electrodes and the PDMS deformable surface.
The air gap allows free deformation of the PDMS and avoids
the fatigue and creep of the electrodes. If no voltage is ap-
plied, the PDMS surface is at and incident light reects
on polymer/air interface at the angle of the total internal re-
ection. When voltage is applied through the ITO layer and
interdigital electrodes, a phase grating in the form of period-
ical relief is generated on the polymer surface. Incident light
is diffracted into many higher orders from the gratings. Per-
formances of the SLM depend on both polymer properties
Fig. 3 Schematic of (a) top and (b) cross-section view of the SLM.
Fig. 4 SLM fabrication process ow. (a) Au and TiW interdigital elec-
trodes patterning. (b) Electrodes wire-bonding and wire protection.
(c) Glass beads and conductive adhesives deposition. (d) PDMS de-
position. (e) PDMS squeezing. Fibers are used to dene the PDMS
thickness. (f) PDMS curing and peeling. Because of the hydrophilic
surface of the glass plate, the PDMS elastomer was only attached to
the prism. (g) Chip mounting. The ITO electrodes on the prism were
connected to the chip by conductive adhesive.
and structure dimensions. The following design parameters
of the SLM are obtained from nite element simulations
in COMSOL,
11
targeting a relatively large relief depth of
PDMS: PDMS thickness 25 m, air gap 5 m, period of
interdigital electrodes in a range of 60 to 80 m, size of the
chip 11 mm 18 mm.
The modulator has been fabricated with micromachining
technology, as described in Fig. 4. Typically, a driven electric
eld up to 150 V/m is required to actuate EAP lms.
9
The
SLM reported in this work is driven by 200 V dc voltage
and 60 V ac voltages to the ITO and interdigital electrodes,
respectively. The low driving voltage requirement (260 V on
25 m thick PDMS lm) is attributed to the high sensitivity
of PDMS. When the SLMwas not actuated, the incident light
was not diffracted. i.e., only zeroth order of the light came out
of the SLM, as shown in Fig. 5(a). The measured power of the
output beam was 1.84 mW. When the SLM was actuated, the
incident light was decomposed into several output beams, as
shown in Fig. 5(b). The power distribution of the decomposed
beams is shown in Table 1, and the sum of all orders was
Fig. 5 Measured far-eld diffraction patterns from (a) a nonactuated
SLM, and (b) an actuated SLM. Simulation of far-eld diffraction pat-
terns from (c) a nonactuated SLM, and (d) an actuated SLM.
Table 1 Experimental and simulation results of optical power distri-
bution when the SLM is actuated.
Diffraction orders 0 +1 1 +2 2 +3 3 +4 4
Power (W)
experiments
110 538 532 221 227 54 58 19 20
Power (W) theory 106 596 596 212 212 27 27 2 2
1.78 mW. The small deviation from a nondiffracted beam
(1.84 mW) could be due to scattering and higher orders
which were not taken into account. Simulations in ZEMAX
were done to obtain far-eld diffraction patterns using scalar
diffraction theory.
10
The results were compared with exper-
iments, as shown in Figs. 5(c) and 5(d) and Table 1. The
deviation between experiments and theory, especially for
high orders, is due to the shape of the gratings, which is
not a perfect sinusoidal. The response time of the modulator
was measured as 35 s, which was close to the intrinsic re-
sponse time of the PDMS. The divergence can be generated
from the timing delay in the circuit. The fast response speed
gives many advantages in practical applications of SLMs.
For example, the motion-blur of fast moving objects in ac-
tion scenes can be eliminated in display applications. The
SLM shows no degradation or breakdown after millions of
actuation cycles. It functioned well after storage in room
temperature for a month, indicating good reliability of the
device.
4 Conclusion
AMEMS spatial light modulator was fabricated using micro-
machining technology with swollen PDMS as the actuation
material. The SLM is driven by 200 V dc voltage and 60 V
ac voltage and the response time is 35 s. Compared with
other polymer-based SLMs,
5, 1114
the advantages of the pro-
posed SLM are: fast response speed, reliability, low driving
voltage, and low light loss. The improved reliability of the
SLM is achieved by designing the SLM without direct con-
tact between electrodes and deformable EAP surface, while
the fast response speed is attributed to the optimized PDMS
network structure.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Dr. M. N. Akram and Dr. V.
Kartashov for fruitful discussions. This work is funded by the
Research Council of Norway under Grant BIA-286 project
number 182667.
References
1. D. M. Bloon, The grating light valve: revolutionizing display technol-
ogy, Proc. SPIE 3013, 165171 (1997).
2. L. J. Hornbeck, Digital light processing update: status and future ap-
plications, Proc. SPIE 3634, 158170 (1999).
3. S. K. Yun, J. H. Song, and I. J. Yao, Spatial optical modulator (SOM):
high-density diffractive laser projection display, Proc. SPIE 6487,
648710 (2007).
4. F. Carpi and D. D. Rossi, Improvement of electromechanical actuating
performances of a silicone dielectric elastomer by dispersion of tita-
nium dioxide powder, IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul. 12, 835843
(2005).
5. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen,
A novel tunable grating fabricated with viscoelastic polymer (PDMS)
and conductive polymer (PEDOT), Sensor Actuators A 158, 313319
(2010).
6. H. Kim, J. Park, N. H. Chuc, H. R. Choi, J. D. Nam, Y. Lee, H. S. Jung,
and J. C. Koo, Development of dielectric elastomer driven micro-
optical zoom lens system, Proc. SPIE 6524, 65241V (2007).
7. A. Malthe-Srrensen, E. Zimmer, T. Naterstad, and B. Jacobsen, U.S.
Patent 6,897,995 (2005).
8. V. Kartashov, L. Henriksen, J. H. Ulvensen, B. Svardal, T. Svortdal,
R. Berglind, and G. Hedin, Image improvement in a laser projection
display with a spatial light modulator with a deformable polymer, J.
Soc. Inf. Display 17(7), 581587 (2009).
9. A. O. Halloran, F. O. Malley, and P. McHugh, A review on dielectric
elastomer actuators, technology, applications and challenges, J. Appl.
Phys. 104, 071101 (2008).
10. J. W. Goodman, Introduction to Fourier Optics, 3rd Ed, Roberts &
Company, Englewood (2005).
11. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen,
Optimization of PDMS network for a fast response and sensitive actu-
ation material applied in a MEMS spatial light modulator, Appl. Phys.
A 103, 381388 (2011).
12. G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, W. Gao, K. Wang, M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, and
X. Y. Chen, Polymer-based multiple diffraction modulator for speckle
reduction, Proc. SPIE 7387, 73871F (2010).
13. S. Sakarya, G. Vdovin, and P. M. Sarro, Spatial light modulators on
micromachined reective membranes on viscoelastic layers, Sensor
Actuat. 108, 271275 (2003).
14. R. Gerhard-Multhaupt, W. Brinker, H. J. Ehrke, W. D. Molzow, H.
Roeder, T. H. Rosin, and R. Tepe, Viscoelastic spatial light modulators
and Schlieren-optical systems for HDTV projection displays, Proc.
SPIE 1255, 6978 (1990).
Biographies and photographs of the authors are not available.
53
Article III

G. Ouyang, K. Wang, and X. Y. Chen, "TiO
2
nanoparticles modified
polydimethylsiloxane with fast response time and increased dielectric constant,"
Submitted to Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 2012.

TiO
2
nanoparticles modified polydimethylsiloxane with fast response time
and increased dielectric constant
G Ouyang, K Wang, and X Y Chen
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Vestfold University College, N-3103 Borre, Norway
Abstract: Polymer nanocomposite has shown great potential and impact on broad range of techniques since
its properties can be tailored by nano-fillers. This paper reports a polymer nanocomposite with enhanced
electro-mechanical performance by mixing TiO
2
nanoparticles into polydimethylsiloxane. The
nanocomposites with particle concentration up to 30 wt% were prepared. High energy ball milling and
polyether-modified silicone dispersant was used to suppress the agglomeration and ensure a stable
dispersion. Properties of the nanocomposites, i.e. elastic modulus, response time, dielectric constant and
optical transmittance, were tuned by modifying the particles concentration. Optimized electro-mechanical
properties were observed at 5 wt% TiO
2
particles. This nanocomposite was applied to a MEMS spatial light
modulator, which was fabricated using micro-machining technology. The device was driven by 200 V DC
voltage and had response time of 6 s.

Keywords: Nanocomposite; Electroactive polymers; MEMS; Spatial light modulator.

1. Introduction
Electroactive polymers (EAPs) have recently attracted
considerable interests in applications of electro-mechanical
modulators and actuators, attribute to their lightweight,
reliability, durability and easy processing [1]. They have
been applied in various devices, such as eyeball actuators
[2], tunable gratings [3], lighter-than-air vehicles [4],
inchworm robots [5], tactile display [6], etc. Despite the
listed advantages of EAPs, several technical obstacles need
to be overcome for their wide applications. A high driving
electric field up to 150 V/m, is required to drive the EAPs
[7]. This brings safety issues associated with high voltages.
The response speed of EAPs is slow, typically in the range
of millisecond. A number of approaches have been explored
aiming at improving electro-mechanical performance of
EAPs, by increasing their dielectric constant and/or
decreasing their elastic modulus [8-12]. Under the applied
electric field, EAPs deform either by Maxwell stress, arising
from Coulomb electrostatic interactions among free charges
on electrodes, or electrostriction, arising from strain-induced
permittivity change of the material, or both. The Maxwell
stress induced strain S
Maxwell
, and the electrostriction induced
strain S
electrostriction
is calculated by Equation. (1) and
Equation. (2), respectively [13].
S
Maxwell
= -
0
r
E
2
/Y (1)
S
electrostriction
= - Q
0
2
(
r
-1)
2
E
2
(2)
where the
0
=8.85 pF/m is the dielectric constant of the
vacuum,
r
is the relatively permittivity, E is the electrical
field and equal to the applied voltage divided by the EAP
films thickness, Y is the elastic modulus and Q is the
electrostrictive coefficient. From the equations, in order to
achieve a same strain, the material with lower elastic
modulus or/and higher dielectric constant requires lower
driving voltage. Therefore a reduced driving voltage
requirement for EAPs is accomplished by increasing their
dielectric constant and/or decreasing their elastic modulus.
Reducing the elastic modulus of EAPs involves polymer
network modification [8]. Increasing of the dielectric
constant can be achieved by mixing fine particles into
polymer host [9-12].
In this work, nano-sized TiO
2
particles were applied to
modify the polymer microstructure. Polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS) was chosen as the host polymer because of its
remarkable durability and resistance to temperature, UV
radiation and weathering [21]. Titanium dioxide particles
were used as fillers owing to its relatively high permittivity,
chemical inertness, non-toxicity and easy dispersion in
silicone [1]. Previous applications of TiO
2
-polymer
nanocomposite were mainly in photocatalytic and UV
absorption. The material investigations focused on the
mechanical properties [14, 15], thermal properties [14, 16],
optical properties [16-19], and dielectric properties [1, 15,
20]. Investigations regarding the response time, when TiO
2
-
polymer nanocomposite is actuated under electric field, are
limited. The presented work aims to broaden the application
area of the material and to use it as electroactive polymers in
compact and light weight MEMS devices, such as spatial
light modulators (SLM), variable optical attenuators and
optical switches. Fine TiO
2
particles were dispersed in
PDMS with the help of polyether-modified silicone. The
nanocomposites were characterized for their response time,
elastic modulus, dielectric constant and optical
transmittance. Comparing with pure PDMS, the
nanocomposites with optimized TiO
2
concentration have
faster response speed and increased dielectric constant. The
nanocomposite was applied to a MEMS spatial light
modulator. The SLM was fabricated using micro-machining
techniques. The device was driven by relatively low voltage
and shown fast response time.

2. Experimental
As the host polymer, PDMS with three dimensional
networks was formed by hydrosilylation reaction. Linear
vinyl-terminated PDMS (molecular weight 9400 g/mol,
from Gelest Inc.) reacted with cross-linkers, which were
trimethylsiloxy-terminated methyhydrosiloxane-
dimethylsiloxane copolymer (molecular weight 1950 g/mol,
functionality 4.8, from Gelest Inc.). The ratio of function
groups C=C:SiH was 1:1.2. The presence of extra SiH
function groups is necessary because of the inevitable
oxidation/hydrolysis side reactions [22]. The cross-linking
process was catalyzed by platinum complex previously
dissolved in xylene (from UCT Specialties, LLC). The
reaction formula is given in figure 1, where the C=C groups
in linear PDMS react with the SiH groups in cross-linker.
The fillers, which were titanium dioxide nanoparticles, have
primary size of 25 nm (anatase, from Sigma-Aldrich Co.,).
There are many ways to disperse inorganic nanoparticles
into organic polymers matrix. One can firstly modify the
particles to change their surface properties and then disperse
them into polymer solutions, as reported in [23, 24]. Or
certain dispersant can be used to help the particle dispersion
when mixing the particles with polymer solution, such as in
[18, 19]. Surface modification of the particles is rather
complicated and time consuming. After modification, a
process to remove residual chemicals is necessary. This
method is normally applied for high volume particle
processing. Directly mixing the particles into solution with
the help of dispersant, on the contrary, is simple and
requires single processing step. If the correct dispersant is
chosen, particles agglomeration is suppressed and a stable
and evenly dispersed particles in solution can be obtained.
In this work, fine TiO
2
particles were dispersed in PDMS
with the help of polyether-modified silicone. Firstly, TiO
2

particles (weight percentage from 1% to 30%) were mixed
with linear PDMS in the presence of polyether-modified
silicone (KF-6015 from ShinEtsu). The ratio between
polyether-modified silicones and nanoparticles was 1:5 by
weight. These components were mixed by high energy ball-
milling for 24 hours. Secondly, the cross-linker and catalyst
were added into the solution sequentially, followed by 2
minutes manual stirring after each step. The ratio between
linear PDMS and cross-linker was 9:1 by weight and the
catalyst was 100 ppm. Finally, samples were cured at room
temperature for 30 minutes.
The size distribution of dispersed particles in PDMS
solution was characterized by particle size analyzer Malvern
ZetaSizer Nano S. The solution was diluted to 0.1 wt% to
meet the requirement of the device. The particle distribution
was also characterized by scanning electron microscope
(SEM, Philips XL30). The nanocomposite solution, which
was well mixed but without adding catalyst for cross-
linking, was deposited on silicon wafers. The samples were
placed in oven at 40
o
C overnight. The wafer with TiO
2

nanoparticles on its surface was used for SEM
measurements.

Figure 1. Chemical reaction between linear vinyl-terminated
PDMS and trimethylsiloxy- terminated methyhydrosiloxane-
dimethylsiloxane copolymer, in presence of Pt catalyst.

The elastic modulus of the nanocomposite was obtained
by Hertz equation using a mechanical measurement system,
as shown in figure 2a. In this setup, a metal probe with
sphere indenter is fixed with a load cell. The probe is
controlled to move perpendicularly to the nanocomposite
surface by a control stage. When the indenter touches the
nanocomposite surface, the contacting force is detected by
the load cell. According to Hertz equation, there is a linear
relationship between indentation depth of power 3/2 and the
force on indenter [8]. The elastic modulus is a function of
the gradient and it is acquired by fitting indentation depth
with regard to detected force, as plotted in figure 2b.

Figure 2. Diagram of the elastic modulus measurements. (a)
Measurement setup; (b) The calculated elastic modulus based on
the relationship between indentation depth of power 3/2 (h
3/2
) and
detected force on indenter (F).

The response time of the nanocomposite was measured
using an optical measurement system, as shown in figure 3a.
In this setup, the testing nanocomposite is deposited on a
prism coated with an indium tin oxide layer (works as one
electrode). A metal needle (works as another electrode) is
suspended close to the nanocomposite film. When the
voltage is applied to the electrodes, a small spot on the
nanocomposite (the area under the needle) deforms. The
deformation results in light diffraction and scattering, which
is detected by the photo-detector. The response time is
obtained by comparing the detected signal to applied voltage
in an oscilloscope, as plotted in figure 3b. More details of
the elastic modulus and response time measurement setups
are referred to [8].

Figure 3. Diagram of the response time measurements. (a)
Measurement setup; (b) Applied AC voltage and detected light
intensity in oscilooscope. The response time is defined as the time
required for the light intensity to rise (fall) from 10%(90%) to
90%(10%) of its peak value.

The dielectric constant was characterized by measuring
the capacitance of nanocomposites using TTi LCR400
precision LCR meter. The testing samples were molded into
cylinders with thickness of 5.7 mm and diameter of 26 mm.
Both sides of the testing samples were sputtered with 50 nm
gold film, to ensure a good electrical contact to the LCR
meter.
Light transmittance was measured for 10 m thick
nanocomposite films which were deposited on glass plates.
Hitachi U-1100 spectrophotometer was employed for the
measurements. The characterized wavelength range was
between 300 nm and 800 nm.
A nanocomposite with 5 wt% TiO
2
was applied in a
MEMS spatial light modulator. The SLM was fabricated
using micro-machining technologies. The fabrication
process is shown in figure 4. A 250 nm thick titanium
tungsten adhesion layer was sputtered on a glass substrate.
Afterwards, a 150 nm thick gold layer was sputtered on the
TiW layer. Both TiW and Au layer were deposited by MRC
603 DC Sputter. These two layers were patterned as
interdigital bottom electrodes by wet etching sequentially.
The Au layer was etched by KI+I
2
+H
2
O at room
temperature for 20 sec and the TiW layer was etched by
H
2
O
2
at 50
o
C for 60 sec. A photoresist layer (Microposit
S1813, 2.2 m thick) was patterned to protect the bonding
pads. Afterwards, the synthesized nanocomposite was spin
coated on the chip surface with spin speed of 1200 rpm. The
thickness of nanocomposite layer was 4 m, measured by
Veeco Dektak Profilometer. A 50 nm thick gold film was
sputtered on the nanocomposite at room temperature by
Fisons SC500 sputter coater. The gold film together with the
nanocomposite on the photoresist was lifted off by
dissolving the photoresist in acetone. Finally, the chip was
placed on a ceramic board with gold bonding pads. The
electrodes on the SLM chip were wire-bonded to the
ceramic board for electrical connection.

Figure 4. Fabrication process of the nanocomposite based spatial
light modulator. (a) TiW, Au deposition; (b) TiW, Au patterning;
(c)Photoresist deposition; (d) Nanocomposite spin coating and Au
film sputtering; (e) Lift-off of Au and nanocomposite layer, wire-
bonding.

3. Results and discussion
3.1 Particle dispersion
Inhomogeneous dispersion due to pronounced
agglomeration tendency of nanoparticles is a common
phenomenon for synthesizing a polymer nanocomposite
[25]. However, a good dispersion is necessary to obtain a
nanocomposite with optimized properties. Two techniques
have been applied to suppress the agglomeration. Firstly,
high-energy ball-milling was employed during mixing. It
provided high impact and shear energy to break
agglomerates. Secondly, polyether-modified silicone, which
acts as a good dispersant for dispersing TiO
2
into silicones,
was used for homogenous dispersion and avoiding the re-
agglomeration. The dispersant has branched polyethylene
chains which can bond to the -OH group on TiO
2
surface.
The reaction formula is given in figure 5. The TiO
2
-PDMS
dispersion with or without using the dispersant are
compared, and shown in figure 6. In this test, both mixtures
have been left at room temperature for 24 hours after ball
milling. The suspension without dispersant is found to
quickly settle to the bottom of the bottle. In contrast, the one
with dispersant shows no phase separation even after 24
hours. The stable and homogenized dispersion indicates that
the polyether-modified silicone dispersant is bonded to the
TiO
2
particle surface.

Figure 5. Chemical reaction between polyether-modified silicone
dispersant and TiO
2
nanoparticles.

Figure 6. Comparison between 5 wt% TiO
2
in PDMS solution
without (left) and with (right) the dispersant.

The size distribution of the dispersed particles in PDMS
solution is characterized by particle size analyzer and SEM.
The results are given in figure 7 and figure 8, respectively.
As shown in figure 7, by using the polyether-modified
silicone dispersant, the particle size decreases from around
1000 nm to 500 nm, indicating the function of the dispersant
for suppressing the particle agglomeration. The SEM image
in figure 8 shows agreement with the results in figure 7, that
the particles exist in the PDMS as size around 500 nm. It is
very difficult to further reduce the agglomerates size even
with high energy ball milling, because of the strong
agglomeration tendency of nanoparticles.

Figure 7. Particle size distribution of nanoparticles in PDMS
solution with and without the dispersant, measured by particle size
analyzer.

Figure 8. SEM image of TiO
2
nanoparticles.

3.2 Electro-mechanical properties
The dependence of nanocomposite elastic modulus on
TiO
2
particle concentration is plotted in figure 9. The elastic
modulus decreases from 600 kPa to 487 kPa, when the
particle concentration increases from 0 wt% to 3 wt%. As
more particles added into PDMS, elastic modulus increases
to 872 kPa at 30 wt% concentration. The influence of
particles to the elastic modulus is attributed to two factors:
softening effects due to the interfering of cross-linking
(major effect for TiO
2
concentration lower than 5 wt%) and
hardening effects due to the particle-polymer interaction
(major effect for TiO
2
concentration higher than 5 wt%). At
5 wt% particle concentration, the two effects are balanced
with each other, and the elastic modulus is more or less the
same as unloaded PDMS elastomer. The classical rule of
mixture is frequently used to describe the relationship
between elastic modulus and particle concentration. It
predicts a linear increase of elastic modulus with volume
fraction of particles. This is obviously not the case as it is
observed in figure 9. The reason is that the classical rule of
mixture describes a rather ideal situation. When
nanoparticles are mixed with polymer, the polymer-particles
interaction may result in the formation of an interfacial
region with mechanical properties different to the bulk
polymer. This effect is not taken into account in the classical
rule of mixture. The change of elastic modulus with regard
to particle concentration has been also investigated by other
research groups [1, 12]. In these works, the elastic modulus
increased continuously with TiO
2
concentration. The
deterioration of the cross-linking process by particles was
not mentioned. However, this work shows that the
interfering of cross-linking is inevitable. At particles
concentration above 5 wt%, strong particle-polymer
interaction results in a reinforcement of the polymer
network [26], i.e. particles acting as effective chemical
cross-links. Chemical cross-linking leads to a decrease in
mobility and increase the elastic modulus of nanocomposite.

Figure 9. Elastic modulus of nanocomposites with varied TiO
2

concentrations.

The effect of response time on particle concentration is
given in figure 10. The PDMS without any particles has
response time of 9 s. It increases to 11.5 s at 2 wt%
particle concentration and decrease to 3 s at 30 wt%
particle concentration. At low particle concentration, the
cross-linking process is interfered by the particles. The
polymer chains are less cross-linked and therefore there are
high mobility chains existing in polymer network which can
have large-scale chain relaxation. The result is prolonged
response time. When the polymer network is enhanced by
the polymer cross-linker and the particle-polymer
interaction at high particle concentration, the chain motion is
suppressed. The decreased chain mobility leads to a
decreased response time. The relationship between elastic
modulus and response time can be fitted to Voigt-Kelvin
model. In brief, the elastic modulus is inversely
proportional to the response time [27]. However, at 5 wt%,
though the elastic modulus of nanocomposite (5 wt%) is
more or less the same as neat PDMS (0 wt%), the response
time improves from 9 s to 6 s. Possible explanation for
the improvement of response time is due to the reduced
moveable entanglements. When particles are added into
polymer matrix, the particle-polymer interactions freeze the
surrounding chain entanglements and reduce the amount of
moveable entanglements. Since the movement of
entanglements is a rather slow process, the reduced amount
of entanglements improves the response time.

Figure 10. The response time of nanocomposites with varied TiO
2

concentrations.

The dependence of the dielectric constant on particle
concentration is shown in figure 11. A sharp increase of the
dielectric constant from 2.97 to 3.85 is observed when the
concentration of TiO
2
particles increases from 0 wt% to 5
wt%. Thereafter, the dielectric constant gradually increased
to 4.4 with particles concentration reaching to 30 wt%. The
increase in dielectric constant is attributed to the high
dielectric constant of TiO
2
. For a modulator based on the
deformation of electroactive materials, the increased
dielectric constant gives an advantage of increased
electrostatic force, therefore reduce the requirement of the
driving voltage. The measured dielectric constant of
nanocomposite is compared with theoretical values
calculated from several mixing rules: Maxwell-Wagner
equation [28, 29], Sillars equation [30], Looyenga equation
[31], and Lichtenecker equation [32]. The results are plotted
in figure 11. As seen from figure 11, none of the theoretical
model predicts the dielectric constant change of
nanocomposite well. The reason could be due to: firstly,
these mixing rules hold for the dielectric constant at high
frequency range, while in this work the dielectric constant
has been measured at 100 Hz. At low frequency, the
Maxwell-Wagner relaxation process [33] arises and
influences the dielectric constant. Secondly, the mixing rules
assume that the particles have perfectly sphere shape, and
have not taken account of the particles real geometry.

Figure 11. Experimental and theoretical dielectric constant of
nanocomposites with varied TiO
2
concentrations.

3.3 Optical properties
Light transmittance spectra for the nanocomposites
films (after curing) with different particle concentrations is
plotted in figure 12. The transmittance maintains around
80% at visible wavelength for TiO
2
concentration below 3
wt%. It decreases very fast when the TiO
2
concentration
cross 10 wt%. At the UV range (300 nm 400 nm), the light
loss is dramatic for all nanocomposite films. This is because
of the absorption of TiO
2
fillers at this wavelength range.
The band gap for TiO
2
(anatase) is 3.2 eV, corresponding to
the absorption edges 388 nm [34]. When TiO
2
is illuminated
by light with energy higher than its band gaps, i.e. with
wavelength shorter than the absorption edge, electrons will
jump from valance band to conduction band by absorbing
the energy from photons. When it comes to the visible
wavelength (400nm 800 nm), the light absorption of TiO
2

is negligible, since the electrons do not have enough energy
to jump to the conduction band. The light loss in visible
wavelength is mostly due to the Mie scattering when light
illuminated on TiO
2
particles which has a size comparable
with wavelength. In figure 13, a photograph of
nanocomposite films prepared by spin coating is given. A
high level of transparency is observed when the particle
concentration is lower than 5 wt%.

Figure 12. The transmittance spectra of 10 m nanocomposite
films with varied TiO
2
concentrations.

Figure 13. Comparison of 10 m nanocomposite with varied TiO
2

concentrations on glass plates. a)1 wt% TiO
2
; b) 5wt% TiO
2
; c)10
wt% TiO
2
.

To conclude the investigation, the properties of
nanocomposite can be tuned by modifying TiO
2

concentration in PDMS host material. The choice of particle
concentration depends on the application demands. If a fast
response speed is the top consideration, a nanocomposite
with high particle concentration is a good candidate. 3 s
response speed is obtained with 30 wt% TiO
2
in PDMS. If a
low driving voltage is mostly desired, a nanocomposite with
3 wt% TiO
2
particles is a wise choice, since this
nanocomposite has the smallest elastic modulus. For a
material with smaller elastic modulus, the strain is bigger
under the same driving voltage. However, the cost is the
prolonged response speed. In some optical applications,
where a high transparency is necessary, the nanocomposite
should have particle concentration lower than 5 wt%. From
the electro-mechanical point of view, the optimal point or
balanced point is found at 5 wt%. Comparing with the pure
PDMS, nanocomposite with 5 wt% TiO
2
has faster response
time. The driving voltage is also reduced, attributed to the
smaller elastic modulus, and the increased dielectric
constant.

3.4 Application in SLM
The nanocomposite with 5 wt% TiO
2
concentration is
applied in MEMS spatial light modulators as the
electroactive material. The elastic modulus of
nanocomposite is 567 kPa, which is slightly smaller than the
elastic modulus of pure PDMS. The response time and
dielectric constant are 6 s and 3.85, respectively. In this
SLM, light is reflected at the gold film which is deposit on
the surface of nanocomposite, therefore a high transmittance
is not necessary. The schematic drawing of the SLM is
given in figure 14a. The working principle has been
described in previous publication [35]. In brief, when no
voltage is applied, the surface of nanocomposite is flat.
Incoming light is reflected at the gold film on
nanocomposite surface. When the driving voltage is applied
through the top gold electrode and bottom interdigital
electrodes, a sinusoidal surface grating is formed on
nanocomposite, diffracting incoming light into many higher
orders. By selectively picking/blocking these orders, the
intensity of the light is modulated. Performances of the SLM
depend on both material properties and structure
dimensions. The following design parameters of the SLM
are obtained from finite element method simulations in
COMSOL Multiphysics targeting maximum diffraction
efficiency of gratings: nanocomposite thickness 4 m;
period of interdigital electrodes in a range of 50 m to 100
m.

Figure 14. SLM chip with nanocomposite utilized as EAP to create
the gratings. a) Schematic of the SLM. b) The fabricated SLM chip.
The top gold electrode also works as a reflective mirror.

Surface topographies of the SLM are measured by an
optical interferometer (Wyko NT9100) when the gratings
are non-actuated and actuated, as shown in figure 15.
Sinusoidal gratings at the actuated SLM are observed.
However, the surface of nanocomposite in a non-actuated
SLM is not extremely flat. The relatively rough surface is
because of the TiO
2
nanoparticles inside the polymer host.
The surface roughness R
a
is measured as 15 nm. As the
value much smaller than the wavelength of the incident
light, the nanocomposite surface still works as a reflective
mirror. In order to ensure the diffraction efficiency, 200V
voltage is applied via the top and bottom electrodes. The
peak-to-peak deformation of gratings in figure 15b is
measured as 180 nm. The first order diffraction efficiency is
calculated by J
q
2
(m/2), where J
q
is the Bessel function of the
qth order, and m is a parameter which are determined by the
SLM structure and polymer relief depth. In the case of SLM
with surface reflection, m is equal to 4d/, where d the the
grating relief depth and is the wavelength of incident light.
The calculated first order diffraction efficiency is 33% for
the light with 633 nm wavelength. Typically, a driven
electric field up to 150 V/m is required to actuate EAP
films [7]. The low driving voltage requirement in this work
(200 V on 4 m EAP film) is benefited from low elastic
modulus and high dielectric constant. The response time of
the device is the same as the response time of the
nanocomposite, which is 6 s. This indicated that the time
lag due to RC circuit in the device is negligible. Comparing
with other EAP based SLMs, which have response time in
the range of millisecond [36], 250 microseconds [3], 9
microseconds [8], the response time in this work is
improved thanks to the modified PDMS network with
nanoparticles. The fast response speed gives many
advantages in its practical applications. For example, the
motion-blur of fast moving objects in action scenes is
eliminated in display applications.

Figure 15. The profile of nanocomposite gratings. a) When no
voltage is applied, the surface is flat (R
a
= 15 nm). b) When voltage
is applied, the grating profile is observed. The dimension in z-
direction is exaggerated for observation purpose.

5. Summary and conclusion
TiO
2
nanoparticles with concentration up to 30 wt% were
dispersed into PDMS host material, forming
nanocomposites. The agglomeration of nanoparticles was
suppressed and TiO
2
particles are uniformly dispersed in
PDMS with sizes below 500 nm. The nanocomposite with
optimized electro-mechanical properties were found at 5 wt%
particle concentration. The elastic modulus, response time,
dielectric constant of the nanocomposite was 567 kPa, 6 s
and 3.85, respectively. Nanocomposite with 3 s response
time was obtained by dispersing 30 wt% nanoparticles into
PDMS. Nanocomposite with 5 wt% particle concentration
was utilized in a MEMS spatial light modulator. Comparing
with traditional technology, where pure polymer is used as
the electroactive material in SLMs, the requirement for
driving voltage is reduced to 200 V and the response speed
is improved to 6 s.

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Dr. M.N. Akram, Dr. L.
Henriksen and Dr. V. Kartashov for fruitful discussions.
This research work is funded by the Research Council of
Norway under grant BIA-286 project number 182667 and
poLight AS.

References
[1] Carpi F and Rossi D D 2005 Improvement of electromechanical
actuating performance of a silicone dielectric elastomer by
dispersion of titanium dioxide power, IEEE T Dielect El In. 12
835-843.
[2] Liu Y, Shi L, Liu L, Zhang Z, Leng J 2008 Inflated dielectric
elastomer actuator for eyeball's movements: fabrication,
analysis and experiments, Proc. SPIE 6927 69271A.
[3] Ouyang G, Wang K, Henriksen L, Akram M N and Chen X Y
2010 A novel tunable grating fabricated with viscoelastic
polymer (PDMS) and conductive polymer (PEDOT), Sensor.
Actuat. A Phys. 158 313-9.
[4] Michel S, Drager C, Zobel M, Fink E 2007 Electroactive
polymers as a novel actuator technology for lighter-than-air
vehicles, Proc. SPIE 6524 65241Q.
[5] Jung K, Nam H, Lee Y, Choi H 2004 Micro inchworm robot
actuated by artificial muscle actuator based on nonprestrained
dielectric elastomer, Proc. SPIE 5385, 357-67.
[6] Koo I M, Jung K, Koo J C, Nam J D, Lee Y K, Choi H R 2008
Development of Soft-Actuator-Based Wearable Tactile Display,
IEEE Trans. Robotics 24 3 549-58.
[7] Halloran A O, Malley F O and McHugh P 2008 A review on
dielectric elastomer actuators, technology, applications and
challenges J. Appl. Phys. 104 071101-11.
[8] Ouyang G, Wang K, Akram M N, Henriksen L and Chen X Y
2011 Optimization of PDMS network for a fast response and
sensitive actuation material applied in a MEMS spatial light
modulator Appl. Phys. A Mater. 103 381-8.
[9] Lotz P, Matysek M, Lechner P, Hamann M and Schlaak H F
2008 Dielectric elastomer actuators using improved thin film
processing and nanosized particles Proc. SPIE 6927 692723.
[10] Zhang Z, Liu L, Fan J, Yu K, Liu Y, Shi L and Leng J 2008
New silicone dielectric elastomers with a high dielectric
constant Proc. SPIE 6926 692610.
[11] Gallone G, Carpi F, Rossi D D, Levita G and Marchetti A
2007 Dielectric constant enhancement in a silicone elastomer
lled with lead magnesium niobatelead titanate Mater. Sci.
Eng. C 27 1106.
[12] Zhang X Q, Wissler M, Jaehne B, Broennimann R and Kovacs
G 2004 Effects of crosslinking, prestrain and dielectric filler on
the electromechanical response of a new silicone and
comparison with acrylic elastomer Proc. SPIE 5385 78-86.
[13] Krakovsk I, Romijn T, and Posthuma de Boer A 1999 A few
remarks on the electrostriction of elastomers, J. Appl. Phys. 85
1 628-9.
[14] Liaw W C, Chen K P 2007 Preparation and characterization of
poly(imide siloxane) (PIS)/titania(TiO
2
) hybrid nanocomposites
by solgel processes, Eur. Polym. J., 43 6 2265-78.
[15] Yang T I, Kofinas P 2007 Dielectric properties of polymer
nanoparticle composites, Polymer, 48 3 791-798.
[16] Silva V P, Paschoalino M P, Gonalves M C, Felisbert M I,
Jardim W F, Yoshida I V P 2008 Silicone rubbers filled with
TiO2: Characterization and photocatalytic activity, Mater.
Chem. Phys., 113 15 395-400.
[17] Iketani K, Sun R D, Toki M, Hirota K, Yamaguchi O 2003
Sol-gel-derived TiO
2
/poly (dimethylsiloxane) hybrid films and
their photocatalytic activities, J. Phys. Chem. Solids, 64 3 507-
13.
[18] Nasu A, Otsubo Y 2006 Rheology and UV protection
properties of suspensions of fine titanium dioxides in a silicone
oil, J. Colloid Interf. Sci., 296 15 558-64.
[19] Nasu A, Otsubo Y 2008 Effects of polymeric dispersants on
the rheology and UV-protecting properties of complex
suspensions of titanium dioxides and zinc oxides, Colloid
Surfaces A, 326 1 92-7.
[20] Szabo J P, Hiltz J A, Cameron C G, and Underhill R S 2003
Elastomeric composites with high dielectric constant for use in
Maxwell stress actuators, Proc. SPIE 5051 180-90.
[21] Kartashov V, Henriksen L, Ulvensen J H, Svardal B,
Svortdal T, Berglind R and Hedin G 2009 Image improvement
in a laser projection display with a spatial light modulator with
a deformable polymer J. Soc. Inf. Disp. 17 581-7.
[22] Esteves A C C, Brokken-Zijp J, Laven J, Huinink H P,
Reuvers N J W, Van M P and With G D 2009 Influence of
cross-linker concentration on the cross-linking of PDMS and
the network structures formed Polymer 50 395566.
[23] Rong Y, Chen H Z, Wu G, Wang M 2005 Preparation and
characterization of titanium dioxide nanoparticle/polystyrene
composites via radical polymerization, Mater. Chem. Phys., 91
15 370-4.
[24] Jang I B, Sung J H, Choi H J and Chin I, J 2005 Synthesis
and characterization of TiO
2
/polystyrene hybrid nanoparticles
via admicellar polymerization, Mater. Sci., 40 11 3021-4.
[25] Carpi F, Gallone G, Galantini F and Rossi D D 2008 Silicone-
Poly(hexylthiophene) Blends as Elastomers with Enhanced
Electro- mechanical Transduction Properties Adv. Funct Mater.
18 235-42.
[26] Dreiss C A, Cosgrove T, Benton N J, Kilburn D, Alam M A,
Schmidt R G and Gordon G V 2007 Effect of crosslinking on
the mobility of PDMS filled with polysilicate nanoparticles:
Positron lifetime, rheology and NMR relaxation studies
Polymer 48 4419-28.
[27] Cowie J M G and Arrighi V 2007 Polymers:Chemistry and
Physics of modern Materials (Oxford: Taylor & Francis, Inc).
[28] Maxwell J C 1982 Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford:
Clarendon Press) p 452.
[29] Wagner K W 1924 Die Isolierstoffe der Elektrotechnik Vol. 1,
ed Schering H (Berlin: Springer Press).
[30] Sillars R 1937 The Properties of a Dielectric Containing Semi-
Conducting Particles of Various Shapes J. Inst. Elect. Eng.
80 378-94.
[31] Looyenga H 1965 Dielectric Constants of Heterogeneous
Mixtures Physica 31 401-6.
[32] Lichtenecker K and Rother K 1931 Die Herleitung des
Logarithmischen Mischungsgesetzes aus Allgemeinen
Prinzipien der Station aren Stromung Phys. Zeitschr. 32 255-60.
[33] van Beek L K H 1967 Progress in dielectrics vol. 7, ed J B
Birks (London: Heywood Books) p 69.
[34] Mo S D, Ching W Y 1995 Electronic and optical properties of
three phases of titanium dioxide: Rutile, anatase, and brookite
Phys Rev B 51, 13023-32.
[35] Ouyang G, Wang K, Akram M N and Chen X Y 2009
Fabrication and characterization of polymer based spatial light
modulators Proc. SPIE 7426 742601.
[36] Sakarya S, Vdovin G, Sarro P M 2003 Spatial light
modulators on micromachined reflective membranes on
viscoelastic layers Sensor. Actuat. A Phys 108 271-5.


54
Article IV

G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y. Chen, "A novel tunable
grating fabricated with viscoelastic polymer (PDMS) and conductive polymer
(PEDOT)," Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 158, Issue. 2, pp. 313-319, 2010.

Author's personal copy
Sensors and Actuators A 158 (2010) 313319
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ sna
A novel tunable grating fabricated with viscoelastic polymer (PDMS)
and conductive polymer (PEDOT)
G. Ouyang
a,
, K. Wang
a
, L. Henriksen
b
, M.N. Akram
a
, X.Y. Chen
a
a
Vestfold University College, Horten 3179, Norway
b
PoLight AS, Horten 3179, Norway
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 16 November 2009
Received in revised form 3 February 2010
Accepted 9 February 2010
Available online 17 February 2010
Keywords:
MEMS
Conductive polymer
Polydimethylsiloxane
Tunable grating
Response time
a b s t r a c t
A tunable grating using viscoelastic PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and conductive polymer PEDOT (poly
3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): PSS (polystyrenesulfonate) was designed and the fabrication process was
developed. A sandwich structure (PEDOT: PSS/PDMS/Gold electrode) was utilized. By applying voltage
between the PEDOT: PSS top lm and the bottom interdigital gold electrode, the initial plane surface of
polymers deforms into a sinusoidal grating. The PDMS material properties were tuned by modifying the
network structure to obtain good actuation of the polymer, including large relief depth and fast response
speed. The grating prole on the surface was observed with the maximum relief depth of 200nm. The
response time of the modulator can reach 250s.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
A spatial light modulator (SLM) is a device which is used to
modify the optical wavefront properties, such as intensity, phase,
and polarization, etc. Many different congurations of SLMs have
been investigated during the past decade and applied in projection
displays, printing and optical communications [1,2]. The grating
light valve (GLV) [3], which was developed at Stanford University,
is a spatial phase modulator made by an array of tiny movable
ribbons mounted on a silicon substrate. The digital Micromirror
Device (DMD) [4], which was invented by Texas Instruments, uses
a two-dimensional array of tilting micromirrors. The spatial Opti-
cal Modulator (SOM) [5], invented by Samsung, uses an array of
movable ribbons made of polarized lead zirconiumtitanate (PLZT).
These successful modulators are primarily based on silicon tech-
nology, and complicated processing steps are required for the
fabrication.
Organic materials, such as polymers, are an alternate for SLMs.
Polymers have many desirable features, such as lightweight, easy
fabrication and low production cost [6]. Polymethylmethacrylate
(PMMA) [7], P(VDF-TrFE) terpolymer [8], PDMS [914] based mod-
ulators have been investigated and reported. In polymer based
SLMs, gratings are used to modify the light and they are commonly
Corresponding author at: RI, Vestfold University College, Raveien 197, N-3184
Borre, Norway. Tel.: +47 33037934; fax: +47 33031100.
E-mail address: Guo@hive.no (G. Ouyang).
generated by a sandwich structure (exible metal lm/polymer
actuation layer/xed electrodes). In such a structure, the exible
metal lm is utilized as both the top electrode and the reector,
and it deforms with the polymer actuation layer underneath. This
quite often leads to a stability problem. A wrinkle-like surface and
cracks were observed on the exible metal lm [9,12,15] due to
the large coefcient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch and the
poor adhesion between the polymer and the metal layer.
In this work, a tunable grating is designed and fabricated using
conductive polymer PEDOT: PSS as the exible electrode instead of
metals to improve the surface quality and the device stability. With
minor electrodes modication, this tunable grating can be utilized
as a spatial light modulator for high-resolution display. The choice
of PEDOT: PSS is made based on its high stability and compatibil-
ity with other polymer materials such as PDMS. Moreover, PEDOT:
PSS is a cheap material and gives opportunity to manufacture by
screen printing [16], inject printing, spin coating [17], roll-to-roll
coating [18], and chemical vapor deposition [19]. PDMS is chosen
as the actuation material since it is soft, inert, and highly resis-
tant towards oxidation and chemical attack [20]. Compared with
other polymer based tunable gratings and SLMs, our device has
several advantages. First, thanks for the small CTE mismatch and
the good adhesion between PEDOT: PSS and PDMS, a smooth sur-
face was obtained and the stability of the modulator was improved.
Second, the fabrication method is simple and straight forward.
All the processing is carried out at room temperature. No sophis-
ticated equipments are required for the fabrication. At last, the
device is light weight, low cost and compatible with laser display
0924-4247/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2010.02.006
314 G. Ouyang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 158 (2010) 313319
Fig. 1. Schematic drawing of the designed tunable grating.
system. Using the techniques described in this paper, one can
readily manufacture a spatial light modulator for high-resolution
display applications
2. Structure design and working principle
The structure of the modulator is shown in Fig. 1. A thin PDMS
lm was sandwiched between a PEDOT: PSS lm and rigid bot-
tom electrodes. Gold is chosen as the bottom electrodes for its
high conductivity and reectivity. It is compatible with the sub-
sequent wire-bonding process. The shape of the bottomelectrodes
determines theeventual surfacegratingproleof PDMS. For simpli-
cation, interdigital bottom electrodes were used. Different from
other polymer based modulators [715] in which incoming light
is reected at the top metal layer, light is reected at the bottom
electrodes underneath the polymer layers in our modulator.
The working principle of the modulator is illustrated in Fig. 2.
If no voltage is applied between the top conductive polymer layer
Fig. 2. Operation principle of the tunable grating. (a) Without driving voltage, only
the 0th order of light reects frombottomgold electrodes. (b) With driving voltage,
grating is formedonpolymer surface andthe incident light diffracts intohighorders.
Fig. 3. Relationshipbetweenthe diffractionefciency of the qthorder andthe phase
modulation parameter m.
and the bottom electrodes, the polymer surface is at. Since both
PEDOT: PSS andPDMS are transparent, incoming light goes through
these layers with the same optical path and reects at the underly-
inggoldelectrode. The reectedlight is mainlyinthe 0thdiffraction
order. If the driving voltage is applied, the polymer surface deforms
into a sinusoidal shape. When incoming light penetrates the trans-
parent layers, which has varied thickness at different location, a
spatially varying optical path of the light beam is obtained. The
polymer layers act like a phase grating and diffract light into higher
diffraction orders.
When light passes through a grating area with dimension L W
and electrodes spatial frequency f in x direction (dimensions are
indicated in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), the amplitude transmission function
can be expressed by Eq. (1). The light intensity distribution at the
far-eld output plane (x
0
, y
0
) is determined by Eq. (2) [21].
T(x, y) = exp
j
m
2
sin(2fx)
rect
x
L
rect
y
W
(1)
I(x
0
, y
0
) =
LW
z
2
q=+
q=
J
q
2
m
2
sinc
2
(x
0
qfz)L
z
sinc
2
y
0
W
z
(2)
where J
q
is the Bessel function of rst kind order q, is the wave-
length, z is the distance from the grating to the output plane, and
m is the phase modulation parameter, which is the function of the
peak-to-peak relief depth d and the refractive index n of PDMS.
The diffraction efciency of the qth order can be obtained by the
squared Bessel function J
q
2
(m/2). In this case, light is reected at
the bottom electrodes and the phase modulation parameter m is
calculated as [22]:
m = 2d(n 1)2/
By controlling the relief depth d with applied voltage, the phase
modulation parameter m can be adjusted. Hence the amount of
light diffracted into the 0th and higher orders can be manipulated.
The relationship between diffraction efciency of the qth order and
phase modulationparameter mis showninFig. 3. For light modula-
tion efciency, the grating depth is expected to be as big as possible
with certain driving voltage. In this tunable grating, a relatively big
relief depth is achieved by optimizing the structure dimension and
the viscoelastic properties of the actuation layer, PDMS. The opti-
mized dimension of each layer is determined based on simulations
and experiments, which are: PDMS thickness =3.5m, PEDOT: PSS
thickness =100nm, linewidth of the gold electrodes =30m and
spacing between the electrodes =3m.
G. Ouyang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 158 (2010) 313319 315
3. Experiments
3.1. PDMS synthesis
Commercial PDMS-based elastomer (e.g. Sylgard) has beenused
as the electroactive material for optical modulator applications
[912]. However, the experimental results from different research
groups are inconsistent due to the unspecied chemical composi-
tions. In this work, the PDMS is synthesized to satisfy the demand
of deformability and fast response, by mixing vinyl-terminated
monomer, cross-linker (PDMS that contains hydrides-sites in poly-
mer chain), catalyst and certain amount of solvent. All the mixing
and curing process were performed at room temperature. Youngs
modulus and response time are characterized using home-built
measurement systems. The details of the measurement set up are
referred to [23].
3.2. Conductive polymers PEDOT: PSS characterization
CLEVIOS
TM
PEDOT: PSS is an aqueous dispersion of the con-
ductive polymer PEDOT doped with PSS. The optical and electrical
properties of the conductive polymer were characterized before
applying it to the tunable grating. The transmission and sheet resis-
tance were investigated for different thickness of PEDOT: PSS lms.
The transmission of PEDOT: PSS in UV light (385405nm) was
measured using a UVpower meter and the sheet resistance is char-
acterized by four-probe method.
3.3. Device fabrication
A tunable grating was fabricated on a glass substrate. First, a
100nm thick titaniumtungsten layer, which works as an adhe-
sion layer between gold and glass, was sputtered on the glass
substrate. Afterwards, a 150nm thick gold layer was sputtered
on a titaniumtungsten layer. These two layers were then pat-
terned as interdigital electrodes by reactive ion etching (RIE) and
wet etching, respectively. Afterwards, a 3.5m thick PDMS layer
was deposited by spin coating to obtain a smooth PDMS sur-
face. Finally, a 100nm thick PEDOT: PSS lm was spin coated on
PDMS.
Since PDMS is an originally hydrophobic material exhibiting
a static contact angel of 110
[20], a surface treatment of PDMS

to make it hydrophilic is necessary for the subsequent PEDOT:
PSS deposition. Oxygen plasma treatment is commonly applied
to change the wettability of polymers [24,25]. However, it was
reported in Ref. [20] that plasma treated PDMS surface gradu-
ally changed back to hydrophobic as hydrophobic groups slowly
diffuse towards the surface and replace polar groups existing
on the plasma treated surface. This aging effect can be slowed
down using SF
6
plasma followed by O
2
plasma processes [26].
Thus SF
6
, Ar, O
2
, plasmas were tried out with several sets of
processing parameters. The wettability was evaluated by mea-
suring the contact angle between water drops and the modied
surface, and the morphology after the plasma treatment was eval-
uated.
A prototype of the tunable grating has been fabricated as shown
in Fig. 4. As a preliminary test, this modulator has interdigital bot-
tomelectrodes and it works for one pixel. Hence there are only two
signal voltages which are applied through the left and right bottom
electrodes, respectively. A SLM with many individually controlled
electrodes for high-resolution display (e.g. 1080 pixels for HDTV)
can be readily fabricated using the same techniques except differ-
ent bottom electrodes. This part of work is still going on and will
be reported in the future.
Fig. 4. A prototype of the tunable grating. The center of the chip is cov-
ered by PDMS and PEDOT: PSS. The dimension of the PDMS layer are
14mm/10mm/3.5m (Length/Width/Thickness) while the dimensions of PEDOT:
PSSlmare 14mm/10mm/0.1m(Length/Width/Thickness). The underlyinginter-
digital electrode is zoomed in and shown in the bottom-right corner.
3.4. Device characterization
The electric eld induced grating prole on the PEDOT surface
was characterized by an optical interferometer (Wyko NT9100),
andthe diffractionefciencyof the modulator was calculatedbased
upon the measured relief depth. The transmission of the modulator
was obtainedby comparing the incident andreectedlight. AHeNe
laser with 633nm wavelength was illuminated at the modulator.
The intensityof the incident andreectedlight was measuredusing
a photo detector (Photomultiplier Tube).
Theoretical analysis of the static electro-mechanical property of
thedevicewas carriedout usinga niteelements softwareCOMSOL
Multiphysics 3.4, and the simulation results are compared with the
experiments.
The dynamic electro-mechanical properties of the tunable grat-
ing were characterized in terms of the response time. It was
measuredbya home-built measurement system. As showninFig. 5,
a HeNe laser beam with 633nm wavelength was directed onto the
gratings. When no driving voltage was applied, only the 0th order
of light was reected from the bottom gold electrode and then
blocked by a Schlieren stop. When driving voltage was applied,
a grating appeared on the polymer surface, diffracting light into
higher orders. These higher orders were detected by a photo detec-
tor (Photomultiplier Tube).
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Material properties
The Youngs modulus of the synthesized PDMS is measured as
s. The mea-
Fig. 5. Schematic drawing of the experimental setup for response time measure-
ments.
600kPa. The response time is characterized to be 10
Fig. 6. Transmission (*) and sheet resistance () with regard to PEDOT: PSS thick-
ness.
surement results prove that the synthesized PDMS has both good
deformability and fast response speed.
The transmission of PEODT: PSS in UVvisible wavelength is
given in the product specication [27] that more than 80% trans-
mission can be obtained for 200nm PEDOT lm. The transmission
of PEDOT: PSS in UV light (385405nm) was measured using a UV
power meter to verify the datasheet. The result is shown in Fig. 6.
With the lm thickness below 250nm, the transmission was in
the range of 8095%. This measurement results t the data given
in Ref. [27]. The sheet resistance of the PEDOT: PSS lms were
obtained using four-probe method as shown in Fig. 6. As expected,
thinner lmhas better transmission but bigger resistance. In order
to obtain the efciency of the device, it is important to nd the
optimal balance between the transmission and resistance of the
transparent conductive polymer. In this work, 100nm PEDOT: PSS
lms were utilizedsince they have relatively hightransmissionand
small resistance.
4.2. Surface morphology
In SLMs, the surface morphology has signicant effects on the
light modulation. Usually, a smooth surface is required so that the
light scattered into random direction can be kept at the minimum.
After PDMS spin coating, a smooth surface was obtained with sur-
face roughness of approximately 7nm, which was measured by an
optical interferometer. However, the plasma processing, which is
necessary before PEDOT: PSS deposition, may change the surface
morphology of PDMS. Varied plasma sources were tried to change
the wettability of PDMS without surface deterioration. The results
are shown in Fig. 7. SF
6
plasma created column-like structures due
to the selective etching. These structures have height around sev-
eral hundred nanometers and this phenomenon was also reported
in Ref. [28]. Ar plasma gave smoother surface but slightly increased
the surface roughness due to the physical impinging. Awrinkle-like
surface was observed after 5min O
2
plasma treatment, which may
be due to the elevated temperature caused by the long time plasma
treatment. The O
2
plasma treatment time was then optimized as
60s which dramatically increased the surface wettability of PDMS
(contact angle drops from 110
to 3
) without noticeable surface

deterioration. After PEDOT: PSS deposition, the surface roughness
of the device was further decreased to 3nm. Meanwhile, the exper-
iments indicated that if the PEDOT: PSS layer was deposited right
after the plasma treatment on PDMS surface, it bonded to PDMS
tightly. The adhesion between PDMS and PEDOT: PSS remained
good after two months. The reason for the eliminated aging effect
canbe explainedas follows: once the conductive polymer is bonded
to the polar groups on PDMS surface, it stops the diffusion of polar
groups towards bulk PDMS. In this work, PEDOT: PSS solution was
spin coated on PDMS surface right after the oxygen plasma pro-
cessing, and then baked in an oven at 60
C for 1h to evaporate
the solvent in PEDOT: PSS. Thus the aging effect of PDMS surface
wettability was avoided.
4.3. Static characterization of the device
When driving voltage was applied between the top conductive
polymer layer and the bottom electrodes, electric eld was gener-
ated in the PDMS layer and led to gratings on PDMS surface. The
grating prole on PEDOT: PSS surface under 250V driving volt-
age was measured by an interferometer and shown in Fig. 8. The
value of the peak-to-peak deformation was approximately 200nm.
Fig. 7. Surface morphology of plasma treated PDMS lm, measured by an interferometer. The surface structures are exaggerated. (a) SF
6
plasma treated PDMS. The surface
roughness is Ra =250nm. (b) Ar plasma treated PDMS. The surface roughness is Ra =15nm. (c) 5min O
2
plasma treated PDMS. The surface roughness is Ra =35nm. (d) 60s
O
2
plasma treated PDMS. The surface roughness is Ra =7nm.
Fig. 8. Grating prole on PEDOT: PSS surface under 250V driving voltage measured
by an interferometer. The relief depth is exaggerated.
The relief depth shows good uniformity across the whole device.
From Eq. (2), the diffraction efciency of the rst order, dened
as the amount of light diffracted in the rst diffraction order, was
calculated as 27%.
The optical transmission of the modulator was measured as 78%
at 633nm wavelength. It is not as good as the SLMs with a contin-
uously reective surface, but it is considered acceptable. The light
loss is mainlyduetotheabsorptioninthepolymer layers, thereec-
tion in the media interface, and the light loss in the small spacing
between bottom electrodes.
According to Refs. [30,31], the refractive index of PEDOT: PSS
and PDMS is 1.51 and 1.47, respectively. This refractive index vari-
ation can inuence the characteristic of the diffracted light. Based
on the Snells law, the angular change at the PEDOT/PDMS inter-
face is 0.01(radians). Hence the diffraction angle is mainly dened
by the grating period and the relief depthof PDMS. Small amount of
light will also reected at the interface due to the refractive index
change. From Eq. (3), where R is the reectance, n
1
and n
2
are the
refractiveindexof PEDOT: PSSandPDMS, respectively, thereected
light is calculated as 0.01% of the total incident light. In this case,
the angular change and the reection, which are originated from
the refractive index variation, are considered negligible.
R = (n
1
n
2
)
2
/(n
1
+n
2
)
2
(3)
The theoretical analysis of the electric eld induced deforma-
tion was described in detail in Ref. [29], where the relief depth of
the gratings was given as a function of the electric potential, the
spatial frequency of bottom electrodes, the viscoelastic property
and the thickness of the actuation layer. A 3D model was con-
structed by coupling electrical domain and mechanical domain in
COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4. The electric eld and the relief depth
were calculated by solving the Maxwells equations and the Hooks
law respectively [32]. The simulation results are shown as Fig. 9,
in which the grating prole is clear. To compare the experimental
results with the simulation results, the relief depth of the PDMS
Fig. 9. Simulation results of surface grating from COMSOL. The black outline indi-
cates the structure before deformation. The gray grade represents the magnitude of
the electric potential.
Fig. 10. Experimental results () and simulation results () of PDMS relief depth
with regard to the driving voltage.
surface with regard to the driving voltage was plotted. As shown
in Fig. 10, the experiment results show fair agreement with the
simulation results.
4.4. Dynamic characterization of the device
The results of the measuredresponse time of the tunable grating
are shown in Fig. 11. In this measurement, a 200V, 1kHz rectan-
gular wave was applied. The rise/fall time, which is dened as the
time required for the PDMS deformation to rise/fall from 10% (or
90%) to 90% (or 10%) of its peak value, was measured as 240s and
250s respectively.
The response speed of the device are determined both by the
time needed for polymer deformation, which is determined by its
viscoelastic property, and by the time constant of the RC circuit
wheretheresistanceis mainlyoriginatedfromtheconductivepoly-
mer and capacitance is fromthe PDMS layer. The response speed of
the polymer based modulator is usually limited by the viscoelastic
property of the polymer as the time constant of the RC circuit is
relatively small. In this work, the PDMS was synthesized to have a
short response time, which is measured as 10s, while the retar-
dation time of the RC circuit, which is calculated as =RC, is 230s.
In this calculation, the relative permittivity of PDMS is 2.5 [33]. The
resistance of the wire bonds, the gold electrodes, the connecting
Fig. 11. Dynamic characterization of the device under 200V, 1kHz driving voltage.
cables and the impedance of the generator were neglected. Com-
paringtheRCretardationtimewiththemeasuredrisetime(240s)
andfall time (250s), the response time of our modulator is mainly
determined by the RC circuit. Therefore, to improve the response
speed of the device, the best way is tuning PEDOT: PSS with high
conductivity. It has been reported that the conductivity of PEDOT:
PSS lms can be dramatically increased by adding additives such
as glycerol [18,34,35]. In Ref. [35], the PEDOT: PSS was modied to
have conductivity approximately 750S/cm. If this kind of PEDOT:
PSS is used in our tunable grating, the time constant in electrical
domain will dramatically decrease to 148ns and the response time
can reach 10s, which is limited by the intrinsic response time of
the PDMS lm.
Drivingvoltageof 200Vand1kHz rectangular wavewas applied
to the tunable grating for 8h. The test showed that the modulator
worked well after millions times of actuation. No breakdown or
reduction in the relief depth was observed during this test. Eight
hours continuously laser exposure did not bring any degradation of
the modulator. The modulator works well after two months stored
at room temperature.
5. Summary and conclusions
In conclusion, a tunable grating using conductive polymer
PEDOT: PSS and viscoelastic PDMS was designed, fabricated and
characterized. In contrast to other polymer/metal based modula-
tors, our modulator uses PEDOT: PSS as the top electrode instead
of metals in order to improve the surface quality and the stability.
A smooth surface of PEDOT: PSS was obtained with roughness of
approximately 3nm, and it showed good adhesion to the underly-
ing PDMS layer. To ensure a fast response time of the modulator,
PDMS with 10s response time was successfully synthesized. The
tunable grating was characterized with good static and dynamic
performance. Under 250V 1kHz driving voltage, a maximum
200nm peak-to-peak relief depth on PDMS surface was obtained,
giving 27% rst order diffraction efciency. The rise and the fall
time of the modulator are 240s and 250s, respectively. Simu-
lation model for the static electro-mechanical performance of the
tunable grating was built. The simulation in COMSOL shows fair
agreement with the experimental results with respect to the relief
depth.
The technique reported in this paper can be easily applied to
make a SLM for high-resolution display. Since the device shows no
degradation after long time laser exposure, it can be adapted for
line-scan laser display with low production cost.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the Norwegian Research Council
(NFR). The authors wish to express their gratitude to PoLight AS
for providing their facilities and Dr. V. Kartashov for the fruitful
discussions.
References
[1] O. Solgaard, F.S.A. Sandejas, M. bloom, A deformable grating optical modulator,
Optics Letters 17 (1992) 688690.
[2] T. Wada, A. Morimoto, Electro-optic devices with polarization reversal, Journal
of the Korean Physical Society 46 (2005) 2932.
[3] D.M. Bloon, The grating light valve: revolutionizing display technology, Pro-
ceedings of SPIE 3013 (1997) 165171.
[4] L.J. Hornbeck, Deformable-mirror spatial light modulator, Proceedings of SPIE
1150 (1989) 86102.
[5] S.K. Yun, J.H. Song, I.J. Yao, Spatial optical modulator (SOM): high-density
diffractive laser projection display, Proceedings of SPIE 6487 (2007) 648710.
[6] R. Pelrine, R. Kornbluh, J. Joseph, R. Heydt, Q. Pei, S. Chiba, High-eld deforma-
tion of elastomeric dielectrics for actuators, Materials Science and Engineering
C 11 (2000) 89100.
[7] D. Cristea, P. Obreja, M. Kusko, E. Manea, R. Rebigan, Polymer micromachining
for micro- and nanophotonics, Materials Science and Engineering C 26 (2006)
10491055.
[8] D.Y. Jeong, E. Hong, Spatial light modulator using
poly(vinylideneuoridetriuoroethylenechlorouoroethylene) Terpolymer
with a high electrostrictive strain, Journal of the Korean Physical Society 48
(2005) 229232.
[9] G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M.N. Akram, X. Chen, Fabrication and characterization
of polymer based spatial light modulators, Proceedings of SPIE 7426 (2009)
742604.
[10] S. Sakarya, G. Vdovin, P.M. Sarro, Spatial light modulators based on microma-
chined reective membranes on viscoelastic layers, Sensors and Actuators A:
Physical 108 (2003) 271275.
[11] H. Kuck, W. Doleschal, A. Gehner, W. Grundke, R. Melcher, J. Pauer, R. Selt-
mann, G. Zimmer, Deformable micromirror devices and phase-modulating
high-resolution light valves, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 54 (1996)
536541.
[12] S. Sakarya, G. Vdovin, P.M. Sarro, Technologyof reectivemembranes for spatial
light modulators, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 97 (2002) 468472.
[13] M. Aschwanden, A. Stemmer, Polymeric, electrically tunable diffraction grating
based on articial muscles, Optics Letters 31 (2006) 26102612.
[14] M. Aschwanden, M. Beck, A. Stemmer, Diffractive transmission grating tuned
by dielectric elastomer actuator, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters 19 (2007),
NO. 14.
[15] K. Wang, G. Ouyang, L. Henriksen, M.N. Akram, X. Chen, Surface andelecrtrome-
chanical properties of polydimethylsiloxane lms prepared by modied
molding technique, Proceedings of SPIE 7381 (2009) 73810C.
[16] K. Ren, S. Liu, M. Lin, Y. Wang, Q.M. Zhang, A compact electroactive polymer
actuator suitable for refreshable Braille display, Sensors and Actuators A: Phys-
ical 143 (2007) 335342.
[17] C. Yiming, W. Leeyih, S. Weifang, Polymer solar cells with poly (3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene) as transparent anode, Organic Electronics 9 (2008)
968973.
[18] D. Aurore, B. Anne, B. Julien, N. Charles, PEDOT: PSS coating onspecialty papers:
process optimization and effects of surface properties on electrical perfor-
mances, Progress in Organic Coatings 63 (2008) 8791.
[19] L.P. John, L.L. Jodie, Z.S. Nicole, I.G. sung, H.T. Paula, G.K. Karen, Electrochemical
investigationof PEDOTlms depositedviaCVDfor electrochromic applications,
Synthetic Metals 157 (2007) 894898.
[20] M.E. Vlachopoulou, P.S. Petrou, S.E. Kakabakos, A. Tserepi, E. Gogolides, Hight-
aspect-ration plasma-induced nanotextured poly(dimethylsiloxane) surface
with enhanced protein adsorption capacity, Journal of Vacuum Science and
Technology B 26 (2008) 25432548.
[21] J.W. Goodman, Introduction to Fourier Optics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1968.
[22] P. Roth, New optical conguration for large-screen HDTV projector, Displays
16 (1995) 912.
[23] L.Henriksen, V.Kartashov, European Patent Application EP1960819 A1 (2008).
[24] M.T. Khorasani, H. Mirzadeh, S. Irani, Plasma surface modication of poly(l-
lactic acid) and poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) lms for improvement of nerve
cells adhesion, Radiation Physics and Chemistry 77 (2008) 280287.
[25] S.K. iseth, A. Krozer, B. Kasemo, J. Lausmaa, Surface modicationof spincoated
high-density polyethtylene lms by argon and oxygen glow discharge plasma
treatments, Applied Surface Science 202 (2002) 92103.
[26] M.E. Vlachopoulou, P.S. Petrou, S.E. Kakabakos, A. Tserepi, K. Beltsios, E.
Gogolides, Effect of surface nanostructuring of PDMS on wetting properties,
hydrophobic recovery and protein adsorption, Microelectronic Engineering 86
(2008) 13211324.
[27] H.C.Starck, Users manual for conductive polymer CLEVIOS
TM
P, Number PD-
6002, Issue 2-05, 09 (2006).
[28] M.E. Vlachopoulou, A. Tserepi, K. Beltsios, G. Boulousis, E. Gogolides, Nanos-
tructuring of PDMS surfaces: dependence on casting solvents, Microelectronic
Engineering 84 (2007) 14761479.
[29] R. Tepe, Theoretical analysis of an electrically addressed viscoelastic spatial
light modulator, Optical Society of America 4 (1987) 12731281.
[30] W. Li, R.A. Jones, S.C. Allen, J.C. Heikenfeld, A.J. Steckl, Maximizing Alq3
OLED internal and external efciencies: charge balanced device structure and
color conversion outcoupling lenses, Journal of Display Technology 2 (2006)
143152.
[31] D.A. Cahng-Yen, R.K. Eich, B.K. Gale, A Monolithic PDMS waveguide system
fabricated using soft-lithography techniques, Journal of Lightwave Technology
23 (2005) 20882093.
[32] COMSOL AB, COMSOL Multiphysics Model Library: 3DCantilever Beam, (2007).
[33] J.E. Mark, Polymer Data Handbook, Second ed., Oxford University, 2009.
[34] S.L. Lai, M.Y. Chan, M.K. Fung, C.S. Lee, S.T. Lee, Concentration effect of glyc-
erol on the conductivity of PEDOT lm and the device performance, Materials
Science and Engineering B 104 (2003) 2630.
[35] Y.H. Ha, N. Nikolov, S.K. Pollack, J. Mastrangelo, B.D. Martin, R. Shashidhar,
Toward a transparent, highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene),
Advanced Functional Materials 14 (2004) 615622.
Biographies
G. Ouyang has a bachelor degree of Electronic Engineering from Harbin Institute of
Technology, China. He graduated in Micro- and Nano-technology at the Vestfold
University College in 2008. He is currently a Ph.D student in Micro- and Nano-
technology at the Vestfold University College. His scientic activities are focus on
MOMES devices and polymer materials.
K. Wang (M) joined the Institute of Microsystem Technology in 2007 as an asso-
ciate professor. He received his M.Sc. degree in Inorganic Chemistry in 1992
from Northwest University, China and PhD in materials physics in 1995 from
the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His research inter-
ests are mainly focused on nano/thin lm materials for magnetic, biological and
environmental applications, MEMS fabrication and micro-bolometer packaging
etc.
L. Henriksen graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Nor-
wegian University of Science and Technology in 2002. He has professional
experience from R&D within polymer science and has 10 years of experi-
ence from development and industrialization of advanced polymer materials
and their application in optical components. He is currently the CTO of
PoLight AS, a Norwegian company developing miniaturized tunable lenses for
microcameras.
M.N. Akram was born in Pakistan on 25 December, 1971. He received B.Sc. in Elec-
trical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
in 1994. In May 2000, he did his M.Sc in Electrical Engineering from King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He did his Ph.D at
The Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Microelectronics and Information
Technology, Photonics andMicrowave Laboratory, Stockholm, Swedenin2005. Cur-
rently he is employed as associate professor at University College Vestfold Institute
of Microsystems technology, Horten, Norway. His research interests are integrated
optics, semiconductor laser modeling and growth, coherent and incoherent imaging
optics.
X.Y. Chen, born 1962, received his Bachelor degree in Semiconductor Physics from
Northwest University, Xian, China in 1983, his M.Sc in Electrical Engineering from
Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, China in 1988, and his Ph.D. in semiconductor mate-
rials and devices from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands in
1997. After nishing his Ph.D. degree, he joined Microelectronics Lab at School of
Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada, where he worked on sili-
con microelectronic device and III-V DFB laser diodes. From 1997 he worked with
Physics Department at University of Tromso, Norway, as associate professor, and
continued as professor until 2002. During that time, his research topics were micro-
electronic devices and opto-electronics. In 2002, he took his one year sabbatical
leave in NSF Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Packaging of Microwave,
Optical and Digital Electronics, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, where he
workedonMEMS designing, processing andpackaging. He joinedMicrosystems and
Nano-technology, SINTEF ICT, Norway at end of 2002 where he started as a senior
research scientist. In 2004 Xuyuan Chen was appointed as Professor of Microsys-
tems Technology at Vestfold University College (VUC), Norway. In part time, he
jointed SAH MEMS Research Center at Xiamen University China as a distinguish
professor in 2005, where he served as Executive Associate Director of SAH MEMS
Research Center from 2005 to 2008. He continued the research topic on Micro- and
Nano-technology, MEMS design and fabrication, such as, RF MEMS and THz MEMS
devices, MEMS micropower, MOEMS and bioMEMS. He is author or co-author of
about 100 scientic publications in international journals and conferences, invited
talks and overview papers in the area of semiconductor technology and microsys-
tems.
55
Article V

G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, V. Kartashov, X. Yan, and X. Chen,
"Speckle reduction using a motionless diffractive optical element," Optics Letters,
Vol. 35, Issue. 17, pp. 2852-2854, 2010.

Speckle reduction using a motionless
diffractive optical element
Guangmin Ouyang,
1
Zhaomin Tong,
1
M. Nadeem Akram,
1
Kaiying Wang,
1
Vladimir Kartashov,
2
Xin Yan,
3
and Xuyuan Chen
1,
*
1
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Vestfold University College, N-3103 Tonsberg, Norway
2
poLight AS, N-3192 Horten, Norway
3
Pen-Tung Sah Micro-Nano Technology Research Center, Xiamen University, China
*Corresponding author: xc@hive.no
Received May 21, 2010; revised July 13, 2010; accepted July 31, 2010;
posted August 4, 2010 (Doc. ID 128823); published August 19, 2010
Speckle reduction by moving diffuser has been previously studied in display systems with coherent light sources,
such as lasers. In this Letter, we propose a motionless diffractive optical element (DOE) for speckle reduction. The
DOE was designed based on finite-element method simulations, fabricated using micromachining technology, and
characterized for despeckle efficiency. Experiments using a DOE with two gratings have indicated that the speckle
was suppressed to 50%, which shows fair agreement with theoretical analysis. With some modification of this DOE,
the speckle noise can be reduced to 10% according to the theory. 2010 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 030.6140, 110.6150, 130.3990.
Speckle is induced by the light scattering and interfer-
ence of coherent radiation from a screen with roughness
of optical wavelength. The fundamental theory of speckle
formation, its statistical properties, and despeckle meth-
ods are described thoroughly in [1]. Considerable efforts
have been made to minimize the speckle in display sys-
tems with coherent sources. The efforts use, to list a few,
a moving diffuser placed at the image plane [2], dynamic
Hadamard phase patterns inside each detector resolution
pixel at the intermediate image plane [3], partially coher-
ent beams [4], and a stationary phase plate based on the
Barker or another binary phase code at the intermediate
image plane [5]. When a mechanically vibrating element
is used, such as those in [2,3], a motor is needed to pro-
vide fast vibration or rotation. This can be difficult for
practical implementation and decreases the systems re-
liability. When a laser array is used, as in [4], the illumi-
nation optics is complicated and the cost increases. The
methods based on binary phase code [5] are only applic-
able in line-scan projectors.
A micro-optoelectromechanical-system-based motion-
less despeckle modulator, which consists of a dynamic
diffractive optical element (DOE) and a static diffuser,
is proposed in this work. It is applicable in a laser imaging
system with a two-dimensional display chip, such as a
digital micromirror device. An example of its implemen-
tation in a laser full frame projector is shown in Fig. 1.
Compared with other techniques, the reliability is im-
proved and the noise is minimized, since no mechanical
vibration is needed for the modulator. Moreover, as fab-
ricated with micromachining technologies, this modula-
tor is compact; therefore, it is flexible for system
implementation. Last but not least, the dynamic gratings
are made of deformable polymer material, such as poly-
dimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is low cost, lightweight,
reliable, and easily processed. According to the experi-
ments, it can stand 80 C, 80% humidity, and long-time
laser exposure without any degradation [6], providing
the capability to work in harsh environments.
The speckle contrast ratio can be suppressed to C
1=M
1=2
by sequentially creating a number of (M) uncor-
related speckle patterns and adding them together during
the integration time of the detector, which is around
30 ms for human eyes [1]. In this work, different speckle
patterns were created using a dynamic DOE together
with a static diffuser. To explain the working principle,
a dynamic DOE including three electrically controlled
gratings is shown in Fig. 2. Each grating can be switched
on and off independently by applying voltage be-
tween the indiumtinoxide (ITO) electrode and the op-
posite gold interdigital electrodes. In the off state, the
polymer (PDMS) surface is flat and the incident light is
reflected at the angle of the total internal reflection (TIR),
while in the on state a phase grating in the form of per-
iodical relief is generated on the PDMS surface, splitting
light into several diffraction orders. When one or several
gratings are actuated, the incoming light is reflected se-
quentially from the areas of the polymer surface over the
gold electrodes and is split into a multitude of diffraction
orders. There are totally M 2
m
diffraction patterns for
a DOE with m gratings, corresponding to different com-
binations of actuated gratings. Each diffraction pattern is
scattered by the diffuser and then homogenized by the
light pipe. Speckle fields created on the screen by these
diffraction patterns are fully independent if there are no
overlapping areas between different diffraction patterns
on the diffuser. In this case, the speckle contrast can be
reduced to
Fig. 1. General structure of the projection display with the
laser light source and the motionless despeckle modulator
for speckle reduction.
2852 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 35, No. 17 / September 1, 2010
0146-9592/10/172852-03$15.00/0 2010 Optical Society of America
C
M K 1
MK
r
; 1
where K is the number of resolution elements of the
projection lens lying within one resolution element of
the eye [1]. However, the despeckle efficiency will be
reduced if there is overlapping of spots of different dif-
fraction patterns [7]. An efficient way to minimize the
overlapping is to use gratings with varied orientation an-
gle and spatial frequency, which was done in this work by
designing interdigital gold electrodes with varied pat-
terns, as shown in Fig. 2.
The dynamic DOE has been fabricated with microma-
chining technology. First, gold layers were patterned in
the form of interdigital signal electrodes on a glass sub-
strate. Second, a flexible polymer, PDMS, was deposited
on the prism that had a thin ITO layer on the surface, by
compression molding [8]. Last, the prism was bonded to
the glass substrate with spacers in between to set the air
gap. Performance of the dynamic DOE is greatly depen-
dent on the properties of the PDMS, which are the re-
sponse speed and the elastic modulus. PDMS with 10 s
response speed and 550 kPa elastic modulus was synthe-
sized by modifying its intrinsic network structure as de-
scribed in [9]. The following design parameters of the
DOE for practical implementation were obtained from
finite element method simulations in COMSOL to ensure
the diffraction efficiency: PDMS thickness, 30 m; air
gap, 5 m; period of gold electrodes in a range of 50 m
to 100 m.
A DOE with two gratings was fabricated and tested for
speckle reduction in the measurement setup, as shown in
Fig. 3. A laser beam illuminated the DOE with 45 inci-
dent angle, which was slightly larger than TIR angles
for the polymer/air and the glass/air interfaces. By apply-
ing 50 V square-wave ac voltage with frequency of 100 Hz
to the signal electrodes (Au interdigital electrodes) and
200 V dc voltage to the bias electrodes (ITO), four dif-
fraction patterns appeared sequentially on the first
diffuser, corresponding to M 2
2
states (Fig. 4). The dif-
fraction spots were scattered by the first diffuser, which
has a 10 divergent angle, and then passed through a
175-mm-long hexagonal light pipe, which was used to
homogenize the intensity of the incoming light. In the ex-
periments, the light pipe was placed adjacent to the first
diffuser to avoid light loss. The second diffuser was illu-
minated by the homogenized light after the light pipe and
imaged by the CCD camera approximately 600 mm away.
The CCD camera was equipped with an imaging lens of
focal length f 75 mm and f -number 16 and operated
in the linear regime. The integration time of the camera
was set to 1=32 s. The speckle contrast was calculated as
C
I
=I
mean
, where
I
was the standard deviation and
I
mean
was the mean value of light intensity [1] all over
the CCD sensor area (640 480 pixels). The speckle field
registered by the CCD camera when all gratings were
switched off is shown in Fig. 5(a), and the speckle con-
trast was 0.73, while the speckle field when four different
diffraction patterns (Fig. 4) appeared during the expo-
sure time (1=32 s) is shown in Fig. 5(b) with C 0:37.
Therefore, the speckle contrast reduction was
0:37=0:73 100% 51%. The original speckle contrast
of 0.73 was close to the expected value, 1=2
1=2
, as it
should be when the narrowband laser is scattered by a
depolarizing screen [1]. According to simulations of
Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the dynamic DOE. Picture at
bottom shows the orientation of electrodes in each grating.
The dimensions are not to scale.
Fig. 3. Experiment setup for speckle measurement.
Fig. 4. Comparison of multiple diffraction patterns from ex-
periments (up) and ZEMAX simulations (down). The larger
number of diffraction orders in the experiment compared to
ZEMAX is because the gratings inside the dynamic DOE were
not perfectly sinusoidal.
Fig. 5. Images and sampling of intensity fluctuation of (a) the
original speckle and (b) the reduced speckle. The CCD level 256
corresponds to the brightest spot in the speckle pattern, while 0
corresponds to the darkest spot in the speckle pattern.
September 1, 2010 / Vol. 35, No. 17 / OPTICS LETTERS 2853
the designed DOE, there was no overlapping among any
of the four diffraction patterns, while the experiments de-
monstrated, too, that the overlapping was negligible. In
this case, Eq. (1) can be used. We assumed that K in
Eq. (1) is infinitely larger, because C was calculated over
the entire area of the CCD sensor with 640 480 pixels;
one pixel had the approximate size of the projection lens
resolution element. Then the speckle contrast C
1=M
1=2
, which gives C 0:5, or 50% for M 2
2
. Thus,
the experimental result shows fair agreement with the
theory.
The proposed dynamic DOE provides an idea of using
a motionless spatial light modulator to reduce the
speckle noise, and it has been proved by preliminary
measurements with 50% speckle suppression. Higher
speckle reduction can be achieved by using a DOE with
more gratings. Calculations based on [7] and simulations
in ZEMAX have shown that the speckle contrast can be
reduced to 25% for the dynamic DOE with four gratings
[10]. However, one cannot arbitrarily increase the num-
ber of gratings to get higher speckle suppression, since
the overlapping of different diffraction patterns will in-
crease, as well. To further reduce the speckle, one can
use a laser beam with a smaller diameter or introduce
a lens between the dynamic DOE and the static diffuser.
This will provide smaller diffraction spots and, therefore,
less overlapping. Further speckle suppression can be
achieved by using gratings with dynamic periods. In that
case, the grating period is varied during the integration
time. The speckle noise can be suppressed down to
10% for the dynamic DOE with four gratings, with each
grating having three grating periods during the integra-
tion time [10].
The authors are grateful to Dr. L. Henriksen for fruitful
discussions. This research work is funded by the Re-
search Council of Norway under grant BIA-286 project
number 182667.
References
1. J. W. Goodman, Speckle Phenomena in Optics: Theory and
Applications (Roberts, 2007).
2. S. Lowenthal and D. Joyeux, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 61, 847 (1971).
3. J. I. Trisnadi, Opt. Lett. 29, 11 (2004).
4. S. An, A. Lapchuk, V. Yurlov, J. Song, H. Park, J. Jang, W.
Shin, S. Karagpoltsev, and S. Yun, Opt. Express 17, 92
(2009).
5. M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, and Z. Tong, Opt. Lett. 35,
444 (2010).
6. V. Kartashov, L. Henriksen, J. H. Ulvensen, B. Svardal, T.
Svortdal, R. Berglind, and G. Hedin, J. Soc. Inf. Disp. 17,
581 (2009).
7. V. Kartashov and M. N. Akram, Speckle suppression in
projection displays by using a motionless changing diffu-
ser, to be presented at Speckle 2010, Florianopolis, Brazil,
September 1315, 2010.
8. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, M. N. Akram, and X. Chen, Proc. SPIE
7426, 742604 (2009).
9. G. Ouyang, K. Wang, L. Henriksen, M. N. Akram, and X. Y.
Chen, Sens. Actuators A 158, 313 (2010).
10. Z. M. Tong, G. M. Ouyang, W. H. Gao, M. N. Akram, V.
Kartashov, K. Y. Wang, and X. Y. Chen, Simulation of laser
speckle reduction by using an array of diffraction gratings,
to be presented at Speckle 2010, Florianopolis, Brazil,
September 1315, 2010.
2854 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 35, No. 17 / September 1, 2010

56
Article VI

G. Ouyang, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, Z. Tong and X. Y. Chen, Laser speckle
reduction based on angular diversity induced by piezoelectric benders, Submitted to
IEEE photonics letters, 2012.

> REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) <

1

AbstractSpeckle reduction techniques have been investigated
in display systems with coherent light sources. We propose a
simple but efficient method to reduce speckle via two fast
vibrating piezoelectric benders. The concept is modulating laser
beams to have angle diversity and reducing speckle by temporal
averaging in the integration time of the detector. Experiments
demonstrate that the speckle contrast is suppressed down to 0.06.
Both free space and imaging geometry are considered. In order to
fairly evaluate the speckle reduction, the optical configuration as
well as the camera settings, which largely affect the speckle
contrast, is discussed.

I ndex Terms Angular diversity, Laser imaging, Projection
display, Speckle.

I. INTRODUCTION
n comparison with conventional lamps, the use of lasers in
projection displays gives unrivaled imaging quality with
extensive color coverage. However, one major technique
obstacle, which limits its applications, is the speckle
phenomenon. Speckle is induced by the light scattering and
interference of coherent radiation from a screen with
roughness in the scale of optical wavelength. The presence of
speckle masks the image information and therefore its
reduction is highly desirable in projection displays. The
fundamental theory of speckle formation, its statistical
properties and de-speckle methods are described thoroughly in
[1]. Considerable efforts have been made to minimize the
speckle noise. A moving diffuser is placed at the image plane
[2] and dynamic Hadamard phase patterns are employed at the
intermediate image plane [3] for speckle reduction. However,
a motor is needed in these cases, to provide fast vibration or
rotation. This can be difficult for practical implementation and
decreases the system reliability. Partially coherent laser beams
are applied in laser projections [4]. The illumination optics is
complicated. A stationary phase plate based on Barker code
located at the intermediate image plane [5] is only applicable

Manuscript received February 07, 2001. This research work is funded by
the Research Council of Norway under grant BIA-286, project number
182667.
Guangmin Ouyang, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Kaiying Wang, Zhaomin
Tong and Xuyuan Chen are all from Micro and Nano Systems Technology,
Vestfold University College, N3103, Tonsberg, Norway. (e-mail:
Guangmin.Ouyang@hive.no, Muhammad.N.Akram@hive.no, Kaiying.Wang
@hive.no, Zhaomin.Tong@hive.ni, Xuyuan.Chen@hive.no )

in line-scan projectors. A polymer dynamic diffractive optical
element [6] is not suitable for high power lasers.
Two piezoelectric benders have been employed in this work
for speckle reduction. The incoming laser beam is steered by
the two piezoelectric benders. The moving beam is collected
by a condenser lens, and falls on a transmitting diffuser at
different angles. Speckle reduction is achieved by angular
diversity of laser beams. Experiments are performed both for
free space propagation geometry and imaging geometry. The
speckle reduction technique proposed in this work is reliable,
low cost and efficient. The integration in laser TVs or
projectors is simple and straight forward. It is a good candidate
in the case when high laser power is requested, since the
piezoelectric ceramic is reliable under high temperature.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The experimental setup to implement speckle reduction in the
free space propagation is shown in Fig. 1. In free space
geometry, no imaging lens is mounted on the charged coupled-
device (CCD). He-Ne laser is employed with power of 4 mW,
wavelength of 633 nm, and beam spot size of 0.5 mm. The
laser beam has a fixed polarization and passes through two
polarizers. Polarizer 1 is rotated to adjust the beam intensity,
and polarizer 2 maintains a fixed polarization of the
transmitted beam. The piezoelectric benders are based on lead
zirconate titanate material and are purchased from Noliac AS.
The dimension is 50 mm7.8 mm0.7 mm (LWH). The
surface of piezoelectric benders is deposited with thin gold
film, which works as reflective mirrors. Two piezoelectric
benders are placed perpendicularly to each other and both of
them are fixed at one end. The maximum deflection range of
the benders is characterized as 1 mm at 100 V 167 Hz
square wave voltage. Laser beam is reflected at two benders
and it is steered in both X and Y directions, creating a 2D
scanning. The moving laser beam is collected by the condenser
lens with focal length 25 mm, and falls on a transmitting
diffuser with different angles. The diffuser is very rough on the
optical wavelength scale to ensure a sufficient phase
modification. After passing through the diffuser, the beam
propagates in free space and falls on the CCD sensor. The
CCD has a resolution of 640 480 pixels, and each pixel has a
dimension of 5.6 m 5.6 m.
In order to demonstrate the application of the piezoelectric
benders for speckle reduction in full frame laser display, an
imaging geometry is constructed as shown in Fig. 2. Unlike
Laser Speckle Reduction Based on Angular
Diversity Induced by Piezoelectric Benders
Guangmin Ouyang, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Kaiying Wang, Zhaomin Tong and Xuyuan Chen
I

2
free space geometry, after passing through diffuser 1, the
scattered light is collected and homogenized by a 175 mm long
hexagonal light pipe. Diffuser 2 is placed at the output of the
light pipe, to further homogenize the beam. The object, which
is a transparent plastic sheet printed with a letter S, is placed
right after diffuser 2. The CCD camera is equipped with an
imaging lens of focal length 50 mm. Lens extenders are
employed to adjust the distance between imaging lens and the
CCD sensor, which is f1 in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1. Speckle contrast measurement setup of free space geometry.

Fig. 2. Speckle contrast measurement setup of imaging geometry.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
When the piezoelectric benders are actuated, laser beam is
steered. The moving beam is focused at a spot on diffuser 1 by
the condenser lens. The spatial position of the laser spots on
diffuser 1 remains the same while the illumination angle is
changed. The laser spots with different illumination angle
generate different speckle patterns, which are averaged by the
CCD camera during its integrating time. The speckle is
evaluated by speckle contrast (SC) which is defined as the
standard deviation divided by the mean value of light intensity
in the speckle pattern [1]. Many measurement parameters will
influence the value of SC. In order to fairly evaluate the
speckle reduction, it is important to perform the calibration
and find the suitable measurement parameters. The calibration
process is based on three criterions: 1). The speckle size
detected in CCD sensor should be big enough compared with
the CCD pixel size. According to [1], the ratio between the
speckle size and CCD pixel size affects the value of SC, by:

where k is equal to A
c
/A
m
, A
c
is the coherent area or speckle
size and A
m
is the CCD pixel size. By plotting parameter k
with regard to SC, it is seen that k should be at least above 10,
to avoid the speckle reduction introduced by the spatial
averaging of CCD pixel. 2). The CCD camera should be
operated in the linear regime. The detected light intensity
distribution should be neither over-saturated nor under-
saturated. 3). In free space geometry, ideally the original SC is
equal to 1 without any de-speckle method applied. In practice,
however, the SC should be 1/2
0.5
(0.71) even without the
motion of piezoelectric benders, due to the narrowband laser
scattered at a depolarizing screen [1].
In free space geometry, the center-to-center spacing of
adjacent dark spots or of adjacent light spots in speckle pattern
is given by z/D [7], where is the laser wavelength, z is the
propagation distance between diffuser 1 and CCD sensor, D is
the diameter of the scattering spot. This is the one dimensional
width of speckle. A reasonable approximation is that A
c
=
(z/D)
2
[1]. In this case, is 633 nm, z is 50 mm and D is 0.5
mm. Therefore the speckle size at the CCD sensor is 63.3
63.3 m, which is big enough to avoid the spatial averaging
due to the CCD pixel. To ensure that the CCD camera is
operated in the linear regime, the camera parameters are set as:
Gamma=100, Brightness=0, Gain=550, Exposure time=1/34
sec (to simulate the averaging time of human eyes). The light
intensity is adjusted by the polarizer 1 to avoid over-saturation
and under-saturation of the detected speckle in CCD. In this
calibrated system, when laser illuminated at the diffuser, which
works as a depolarizing screen, the SC is 0.71.
The captured speckle image with and without the actuation of
the piezoelectric benders are shown in Fig. 3 (a) and (b),
respectively. As expected, without the actuating of benders,
the speckle is significant. As benders actuated, the speckle is
averaged by angular diversity of beams and the image becomes
smooth. The minimal SC is 0.06, which is obtained when
piezoelectric benders are driven under 100 V, 167 Hz square
wave voltage. From Fig. 3 (b), the speckle pattern almost can
not be perceived.

Fig. 3. Speckle reduction in free space geometry: (a) original speckle SC=0.71; (b)
reduced speckle SC=0.06. Speckle reduction in imaging geometry with both fine and
coarse speckle: (c) original speckle SC=0.87; (d) reduced speckle SC=0.16. Speckle
reduction in imaging geometry with only coarse speckle: (e) original speckle SC=0.71;
reduced speckle SC=0.09.
( ) ( ) | | k k k erf k SC t t t = exp 1

3
For imaging geometry, in order to determine the
measurement parameters, the first two criterions as in free
space geometry are employed. The third criterion is not
applicable in this case, due to compound speckle phenomena
[1]. In imaging geometry, when light passes through diffuser 1,
and falls on a finite-sized diffuser 2, there can be a
compounding of speckle statics. The speckle generated from
diffuser 1 has bigger size, or coarse speckle; while the
speckle generated from diffuser 2 has smaller size, or fine
speckle. The SC of compound speckle can be bigger than 1
[1]. Due to the dimension difference of the coarse and fine
speckle, it is difficult to measure and evaluate them in a single
setup. The optical configuration has to be adjusted in order to
observer one or the other. The fine speckle size is calculated
by [(1+M)F#]
2
[7], where M is the magnification of the
optical configuration, which is f
1
/f
2
as shown in Fig. 2. In order
to obtain sufficiently large fine speckle size, F# of the imaging
lens is set as the maximum value 16. The lens is mounted 150
mm away from the CCD sensor and placed 75 mm away from
diffuser 2. Hence, the speckle size is 30.4 m 30.4 m,
which is big enough to avoid the spatial averaging from CCD.
The camera parameters and light intensity are fixed the same
as in free space geometry, to ensure that the CCD camera is
operated in the linear regime and have comparable results. The
captured speckle image with and without the actuation of the
piezoelectric benders are shown in Fig. 3 (c) (d). The SC is
reduced from 0.87 to 0.16 by using the piezoelectric benders.
The original SC is 0.87 rather than 0.71, which is due to the
compound speckle phenomena. In this case, both the fine and
coarse speckle is detected by the CCD sensor. However, the
coarse speckle is big and difficult to distinguish from Fig. 3(c).
The size of coarse speckle is calculated by two steps. From
diffuser 1, the scattered beam propagates in the light pipe with
multiple reflections. This is free space propagation and the
speckle size is (z/D)
2
. The speckle pattern at the output of
light pipe is magnified into the CCD sensor by magnification
M. Therefore the final coarse speckle size is [(z/D) M]
2
,
where z is the propagation distance within the light pipe. We
assume that z is three times longer than the length of light pipe.
To observe the coarse speckle clearly, the optical
configuration is adjusted to: f
1
=60 mm, f
2
=250 mm, F#=1.4.
Hence, the coarse speckle size is 159.5 m 159.5 m. Please
note that the coarse speckle size calculation is just an
approximation because the light propagated inside light pipe in
a complicated manner and it is difficult to predict the light
path. Moreover, unlike the free space propagation, in light
pipe propagation the speckle pattern is folded many times by
multiple reflections from the side walls and this may affect the
speckle size. The coarse speckle is shown in Fig. 3(e). It is
clear that the coarse speckle is much bigger than the fine
speckle, since the letter S is the same as in Fig. 3(c). The
height of the letter S is approximately 0.5 mm, indicating
that the calculated coarse speckle size 159.5 m 159.5 m
agrees with the experiments. In this measurement setup, the
fine speckle size is [(1+M)F#]
2
= 1.1 m1.1 m. The
speckle size is much smaller than the CCD pixel size therefore
it is not perceived by CCD sensor. The coarse speckle is
reduced from 0.72 to 0.09 by piezoelectric benders in imaging
geometry. From Fig. 3 (e) (f), the masked letter S becomes
quite distinct after speckle reduction. In practice the f
1
/f
2
ratio
is usually much smaller than 1, since f
1
is normally the distance
between the eye lens and retina. Therefore, the fine speckle is
difficult to be observed due to the small size.
In conclusion, by using two fast vibrating piezoelectric
benders, the speckle contrast is efficiently reduced from 0.71
to 0.06 and 0.09, in free space geometry and imaging
geometry, respectively. It demonstrated that the proposed
method can be implemented into full frame laser display for
speckle reduction. The method is simple to construct with low
cost and shows good reliability and stability. It is especially
suitable for large display screen where a high power laser is
needed.
REFERENCES
[1] J. W. Goodman, Speckle phenomena in optics: theory and applications.
Roberts & Company Publishers, 2007.
[2] S. Lowenthal, and D. Joyeux, Speckle removal by slowly moving
diffuser associated with a motionless diffuser, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A., vol.
61, pp. 847-851, 1971.
[3] J. I. Trisnadi, Hadamard speckle contrast reduction, Opt. Lett., vol.
29, pp. 11-13, 2004.
[4] S. An, A. Lapchuk, V. Yurlov, J. Song, H. Park, J. Jang, W. Shin, S.
Karagpoltsev, and S. Yun, Speckle suppression in scanning laser
display using several partially coherent beams, Opt. Express, vol. 17,
pp. 92-103, 2009.
[5] M. N. Akram, V. Kartashov, and Z. Tong, Speckle reduction in line-
scan laser projectors using binary phase codes, Opt. Lett., vol. 35, pp.
444-446, 2010.
[6] G. Ouyang, Z. Tong, M. N. Akram, K. Wang, V. Kartashov, X. Yan,
and X. Chen, Speckle reduction using a motionless diffractive optical
element, Opt. Lett., vol. 35, issue. 17, pp. 2852-2854, 2010.
[7] G. Cloud, Optical Methods in Experimental Mechanics, Exp.
Techniques, vol. 31, issue. 3, pp. 1922, 2007.

Guangminouyang PHD Thesis 16jun2012

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Guangminouyang PHD Thesis 16jun2012

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hybrid Integrated Components

for Optical Display Systems --

is the mean value of light intensity in the speckle

[20], a surface treatment of PDMS

) without noticeable surface

You might also like