Insect–Human Hybrid Eye (IHHE): an adaptive optofluidic lens combining the structural characteristics of insect and human eyes

Abstract

Insect compound eyes and human camera eyes are two exquisite optical systems created by nature. The compound eye boasts an angle of view (AOV) up to 180° thanks to its hemispherical arrangement of hundreds of prime microscale lenses. The camera eye, on the other hand, can change shape to focus on objects at various depths, yet accepts light within a smaller AOV. Imitations of either imaging system have been abundant but with limited success. Here, we describe a reconfigurable polymeric optofluidic device that combines the architectural merits of both vision mechanisms, featuring a large AOV (up to 120°) with adaptive focusing capabilities (from 0 to 275 diopter (D)). This device consists of bi-layered microfluidics: an array of millimeter-sized fluidic lenses is integrated into the top layer and arranged on an elastomeric membrane embedded within the bottom layer. The membrane can be deformed from a planar surface into a series of dome-shaped geometries, rearranging individual fluidic lenses in desired curvilinear layouts. Meanwhile, each fluidic lens can vary its radius of curvature for a monocular depth sensation. Such a design presents a new perspective of tunable optofluidics for a broad range of applications, such as robotic vision and medical laparoendoscopy, where adaptive focalization with a large viewing angle is a clear advantage.

Mining the Smartness of Insect Ultrastructures for Advanced Imaging and Illumination

“…In addition, ACE provides various optical properties: a wide FOV, fast motion sensitivity, and polarization sensitivity. Thanks to advanced microelectromechanical system (MEMS) fabrication technologies, various ACE structures including planar arrays, curved arrays, and micropolarizer are recently accomplished ( Figure ). Many studies of planar ACE structures have been performed to directly mount the ACE on the CMOS or CCD image sensors.…”

“…Insect eyes are bounded to adjust the focus due to their fixed structure form whereas human eye can change the focus, depending on the lens radius by alternating the lens thickness. Previous works for the tunable microlens arrays have demonstrated using membrane deformation based on a flexible polymer (Figure f,g) . The curvature of deformable elastomer membranes with microlens arrays can be tuned by using a thermosensitive polymer and a fluidic system .…”

“…Copyright 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), active curved arrays of artificial compound eyes. f) Insect‐human hybrid eyes, Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2014, RSC Publishing.…”

Fabrication of Microlens Array and Its Application: A Review

“…However, the optical system is hard to be miniaturized because it needs overlapping of the concave and the convex bulk lenses (the radius of the spherical lenses is 40 mm). Another approach to fabricate the CACEs is by transforming the 2D microlens-pattern films into a 3D shape by the negative pressure deformation process [52][53][54][55]. However, the uniformity of the microlenses need to be improved because in the negative pressure deformation process, some microlens at the marginal areas may be damaged [55].…”

Improved optical resolution for elastomer-liquid lens at high diopter using varied thickness membrane

“…Adaptive liquid lens has been widely used in optical systems due to its tunable optical power without lens displacement [1][2][3]. There are two major mechanisms to achieve variable optical powers: liquid-liquid lens and elastomer-liquid lens [4].…”