Patent ID: 8186833

Claim:
An electroholographic display system, comprising: a coherent light source adapted to produce a coherent, collimated light beam; a spatial light modulator (SLM) adapted to receive and modulate the coherent collimated light beam to produce therefrom a modulated light beam, the SLM including a plurality of pixels; and a processor and driver unit adapted to generate hologram data representing a holographic image and to apply appropriate voltages to the pixels of the SLM to cause the SLM to modulate the coherent collimated light beam with the hologram data and to suppress a zeroth order component of the modulated light beam at an image plane where the holographic image is reproduced, wherein the SLM is adapted to selectively provide a phase shift of 180 degrees to portions of the collimated light beam modulated by selected pixels, and wherein the processor and driver unit suppresses the zeroth order component of the modulated light beam by selecting the voltages to apply to the pixels of the SLM to cause a first group of pixels to provide a phase shift of 180 degrees to first portions of the collimated light beam with respect to portions of the collimated light beam modulated by a second group of pixels.