DLP5500

Hello Wouter,

First let me welcome you to the DLP section of the TI-E2E Community.

Let me try to answer your questions:

1) is it still available? It is no longer in stock and seeing the 999 weeks for delivery made we wonder whether or not it was still for sale. If it is no longer available, what is a suitable replacement?

Yes the DLP550 is an available part.  Which distributor did you check?  However this is just the DMD you would also need a controller DLPC200 and an analog driver DLPA200.  I would recommend buying a kit from one of our Design Houses.  I know that Digital Light Innovations and Keynote Photonics both sell a module based on this chipset that has software with it.

Otherwise you will need to build your own contoller board and system from the chipset.

2) What is the price for such a device in the Netherlands? I ask this because I have seen various prices among different distributors, ranging from 400 USD to around 600 USD

Please see the links above (Q1) for premade kits that will better serve your needs.

3) How long would it take, if it was still available, for us to receive one from the moment we order one?

Please see the links above (Q1) for premade kits that will better serve your needs.

4)The master's thesis 'Dynamic holography and beamschaping using digital micromirror devices' by Philip P.J.Zupancic of the university of Munich tells us that he used a DLP5500 of Texas Instruments for phase and amplitude modulation. How well suited is generally for such purposes?

We are aware that a number of different researchers have used DMD's for this type of application, but we are not aware of any commercial product using the DMD in this way.  Research papers based on using DMD's for this type of application are going to be your best measure of applicability to your application.

5) What is the difference between the AFYA and AFYB model?

The AFYB is an updated package that made the package slightly more robust.  However either one should serve your needs. 

6) Where can I find additional technical details, such as fill factor, pixel pitch, damage threshold etcetera?

The data sheet has the pixel pitch = 10.8 µm and fill factor = 92% on the first page.  Page 18 of the DLP5500 datasheet has more detail on the effective fill factor.

7) Does the DLP5500 require a refresh rate like Liquid Crystal SLMs do? If so, why and what is the refresh rate

I am not certain what is meant by this question.  Could you clarify?

The mirrors do require periodic Mirror Clocking Pulses to exercise the mirror, but this can be fairly slow (on the order 0.15 Hz).

8) Does the DLP5500 require any additional software and how easy to use is it? Is it like a 'plug and play' device with easy self explaining GUI or does it require more programming?

There is supporting software if you buy one of the premade modules from Digital Light Innovations or Keynote Photonics.  Otherwise there is an API that a solution can be built on.

9) What kind of advantages does the DLP5500 offer me that LC-SLMs (Liquid Crystal Spatial Light Modulators) from for an example Hamamatsu or Boulder Non-Lineair Systems don't have?

There are two primary advantages.

1. Switching speed - up to 7 k binary patterns per second
2. Polarization agnostic - because the DMD is a reflective technology it is relatively polarazation insensitive.

10) Are there any tutorials and/or papers concerning the type of modulation we are looking for?

Not that we are aware of other than what is published in research journals.

11) Do you have any comments on how suitable it is or any useful information we might want to know?

Please check SPIE proceedings for DMD based systems.  There are several papers that have been presented over the last several years that may have some insight as to the applicablitiy to your application.

Please contact the mentioned Designed Houses and discuss their modules with them.

Fizix

Thank you for your reply

I will contact the mentioned Desgined Houses as soon as possible.

What I meant with with the refreshing of LC-SLMs is that they require a refreshing in order to keep the LC part of the SLM intact and efficient.

When a voltage is applied over the liquid crystal, it's molecules will allign in the direction of the electric field. But the molecules will immediately start to 'relax' and go back to their original position after the field has been applied. Not only will they do that, but the electric field will start an electrolysis of the crystal, just like a current through water causes hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) to be formed (a famous high-school chemistry experiment). This will damage the crystal over time.

So in order to prevent damage or phasedroop caused by the relaxation of the molecules the LC-SLM needs a high refreshing. Boulder Non-Linear systems minimise the phasedroop using a 6 kHz refreshrate of the crystal. Other LC-SLMs (Hamamatsu or Holoeye) use around 480 Hz refreshrate. What these however lack in refreshrate they make up in precision and resolution. But that's the story of the refreshrate of LC-SLMs.

Your reply was this:

"The mirrors do require periodic Mirror Clocking Pulses to exercise the mirror, but this can be fairly slow (on the order 0.15 Hz)"

What do you mean with 'to exercise the mirror'? It is however fortunate that it is in the order of 0,15 Hz, whatever the clocking pulses do, since our recording of the Bose-Einstein condensate in usually in the order of ~60 ms (longest recording so far has been 100 ms). So it's not a problem fortunately, but I'd would like to know what you mean by it.

Hello Wouter,

The Mirror Clocking Pulse [MCP] is what causes the µ-mirrors to change physical state if you have loaded new data, but the µ-mirrors that have not changed 0 -> 0 or 1 -> 1 will reland on the same side.  

The important point is that for both "stay" transitions (0 -> 0, 1 -> 1) and "crossover" transitions (0 -> 1, 1 -> 0) the µ-mirrors momentarily come off of the hard stops (i.e. the "spring-tips").  In the case of a stay transition they come slightly off of the stops and then come back down and land on the same side, but for the crossover transition they go over to the other side and then land.  This either case keeps the µ-mirrors operating reliably over time.

However unlike the liquid crystal behaviour, between MCP's the µ-mirrors do not experience droop while landed against the hard stops.

I hope this helps.

Fizix