Three states of micro mirror device
View Patent ↗The present invention provides a spatial light modulator, comprising a mirror modulating a light emitted from a light source, wherein the mirror is further controlled to operate with at least three stationary states whereby an image is projected with a gray scale expression through a combination of modulation of the light operated in the three stationary states.
1. A spatial light modulator, comprising:
a mirror for modulating a light emitted from a light source, wherein the mirror is further controllable to operate with at least three stationary states whereby an image is projected with a gray scale expression through a combination of modulation of the light operated in the three stationary states; and
the mirror is controlled to repeat the three stationary states in sequence for displaying the image with the gray scale expression.
2. The spatial light modulator according to claim 1 , wherein:
the three stationary states comprising a horizontal state and two opposite deflection states with the mirror deflected to two mutually opposite directions relative the horizontal state.
3. The spatial light modulator according to claim 2 , wherein:
the modulator is controlled to operate at the three different states for modulating a light for displaying images with different quantities of light with a relationship among the quantities of light in the three stationary states represented by:
[Quantity of light in a deflection state A]>[Quantity of light in the horizontal state]>[Quantity of light in a deflection state B],
wherein the deflection states in mutually opposite directions relative to the horizontal state in the middle are defined as the deflection state A and deflection state B.
4. A spatial light modulator, comprising:
a mirror for modulating a light emitted from a light source, wherein the mirror is further controllable to operate with at least three stationary states whereby an image is projected with a gray scale expression through a combination of modulation of the light operated in the three stationary states; and
the mirror is controlled to operate in any of the three stationary states no more than 10 microseconds.
5. A mirror device, comprising:
an elastic hinge disposed on and extended from a substrate; and
a mirror supported by the elastic hinge to deflect to different angles for modulating an illumination light, wherein the mirror is controlled to operate in different deflection states and a horizontal state whereby an illumination light modulated by the mirror is controlled to display images with a controllable variation of light intensity according to a predefined gray scale.
6. The mirror device according to claim 5 , wherein:
the horizontal state is controlled to operate in a state when the mirror is stabilized after shifting from the deflection state.
7. The mirror device according to claim 5 , wherein:
the elastic hinge is composed of a semiconductor material.
8. The mirror device according to claim 5 , wherein:
the elastic hinge is composed of a material having an electric resistance equal to or greater than 0.1 giga-ohms.
9. The mirror device according to claim 5 , wherein:
the mirror is controlled to operate in the horizontal state for generating smaller variations of light intensities between the horizontal state and the two deflection states thus generating a reduced level of controllable gray scale.