Patent ID: 6982773

Claim:
An exposure system for creating a patterned polarization compensator comprising: (a) a light source for providing an incident beam of light; (b) polarization optics including at a polarization beamsplitter, for transmitting light of said beam of light having a first polarization, and for reflecting light of said beam of light having a second polarization orthogonal to said first polarization; (c) a polarization based reflective spatial light modulator having an undesired spatial retardance variation; wherein said modulator receives said polarized beam of light, having either a first polarization or a second polarization, and selectively modulates said polarized beam of light to encode data thereon, providing both modulated light and unmodulated light which differ in polarization; (d) wherein said reflective spatial light modulator reflects back both said modulated light and said unmodulated light to said polarization beamsplitter; (e) an imaging lens which uses said modulated light to create an image of said reflective spatial light modulator onto a light-sensitive material; and (f) wherein said light-sensitive material is exposed and patterned with variations that correlate with said undesired spatial retardance variation of said polarization based reflective spatial light modulator, thereby facilitating the fabrication of a patterned polarization compensator.