Abstract
The image quality achieved by light-valve projectors, e.g. their resolution limit, is mainly determined by the Schlieren-optical process, the deformation process of the control layer, and the deposition of definite charge patterns on the layer. The author gives an analysis describing those processes for the single-gun light valve. Evaluating the analysis, the application of this principle to HDTV large-screen displays appears to be limited due to several reasons which are essentially traced back to diffraction limitation and interference of the spatial carrier frequencies used for multiplexing the primary colour components. Improvements are proposed based on finer gratings on the control layer.