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Abstract

A light shutter system (10) incorporates a liquid crystal cell (12) operating as a variable optical retarder to selectively produce opaque and transmissive optical states corresponding to the respective first and second amounts of optical retardation of the variable optical retarder. The cell switches between a residual amount of retardation and an increased amount that equals the sum of half-wave retardation and the amount of residual retardation to provide a shutter system whose system retardation switches between zero retardation and half-wave retardation and thereby produces opaque and transmissive states with an optimal contrast ratio. The cell is positioned between a linear polarizing filter (14) and an elliptical analyzer (16), the latter including a linear polarizing filter (20) and an optical retarder (18) of fixed value. The transmission axis of the linear polarizing filters are angularly displaced relative to a projection of the optic axes of the cell by an amount that provides maximum light extinction in the opaque state. Maximum output light transmissive in the transmission state is achieved by establishing for the cell an optical thickness that exceeds half-wave retardation by an additional amount equal to the residual retardation. Other preferred embodiments that provide equivalent performance are described.

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First Claim