Liquid-crystal deflector

A discrete light-beam deflector was built using an electro-optic element in the form of a nematic liquid crystal with a positive permittivity anisotropy. The switching from one polarization of light to an orthogonal one resulted from an electric-field-induced reorientation of the molecules in the crystal, which altered its birefringence. The deflector was simple to build and it was characterized by an extremely low modulation voltage (10–60 V).