Design and Demonstration of a Switching Engine for a Binary True-Time-Delay Device that Uses a White Cell

Optical true-time-delay devices based on the White cell can be divided into two general types: polynomial cells, in which the number of delays that can be obtained is related to the number of times m that a beam bounces in the cell raised to some power, and exponential cells, in which the number of delays is proportional to some number raised to the power of m . In exponential cells, the topic to be addressed, the spatial light modulator switches between a delay element and a null path on each bounce. We describe an improved design of this switching engine, which contains a liquid-crystal switch and a White cell. We examine astigmatism and corrections for it and present a specific design.