Close-packed liquid-filled tunable microlens array

Abstract

Figure 1: Concept of our work. We propose three types of close-packed liquid-filled tunable lens arrays with different lens geometries. Honeycomb structure is one of the closest packing of hexagonal structures. Hexagonal close-packed structure is the closest packing structure for circles. We evaluated their effective lens area, optical lens effects and durability by comparing these three types of lens arrays. ABSTRACTThis paper describes close-packed liquid-filled tunable microlens arrays for optical devices such as integral imaging systems. These lenses are simply composed of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microchannels. Applied pressure deforms the top membrane of microchannels to form convex lenses. These lenses have three advantages: (i) Uniform deformation by pressure-driven actuation, (ii) Adjustable optical characteristics without patterned electrode, (iii) High-density integration of tunable microlenses. We fabricated three types of lenses: "Honeycomb", "Ladybird" and "Spiderweb" as close-packed structure and showed that the "Spiderweb" type packing is the most suitable for close packing. We believe that these lenses can be applied to optical applications such as 3D displays based on integral photography.

Converging Microlens Array Using Nematic Liquid Crystals Doped with Chiral Nanoparticles

“…Microlens arrays are used for a wide range of applications. − Individual lenses have convex or concave spherical cap shapes where the optical path n ( r ) · d ( r ) varies due to the thickness variation d ( r ), while the refractive index is constant. Fabricating such arrays usually requires complex processes such as photoresist thermal reflow, , photolithography, plasmonic photopatterning, − nanoimprinting, inkjet printing, and direct laser writing .…”