Electrooptic materials for digital light beam deflectors

The technology of digital deflectors made significant progress in the past. The success of this development was primarily based on the advances made in the preparation of electrooptic materials. The selection criteria are described here for a material suitable for the particular application under consideration, and a survey is made of the most promising electrooptic materials, both solid state and liquid. The list of solid-state materials comprises representatives of the class of oxygen octahedra ferroelectrics, KDP isomorphs, and AB-type compounds. A section on Kerr liquids begins with considerations for the optimization of the molecular structure and gives experimental results on some newly synthesized materials. Further, the impurity conduction phenomena that are important to the technical performance are described in detail. The final section reviews the present state of digital deflector development.