Abstract
Soft electroactive materials including dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gels have recently been extensively investigated. These smart materials can effectively respond to an electric field, resulting in shape deformation. In addition to artificial muscles, actuators, sensors, and micro-electromechanical systems, they can be used to prepare various adaptive lenses with unique features such as a simple fabrication, compact structure, good flexibility, and light weight. In contrast to DEAs, PVC gels can provide exciting opportunities for emerging applications in imaging, sensing, optical communication, biomedical engineering, and displays. In this review paper, the underlying physical mechanisms of these two electroactive materials are explained first, and then some recent progress in their application in macro-sized lenses and microlens arrays is presented. Finally, future perspectives of the PVC gels are discussed.
Highlights
Adaptive-focus lenses have attractive applications in machine vision, mobile phone cameras, eyeglasses, image surveillance systems, target tracking, biometrics, and electronic displays
We focus on the adaptive lenses based on dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) materials and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gels
Soft electroactive materials are the emerging intelligent materials which can be used as lens materials or lens actuators
Summary
Adaptive-focus lenses have attractive applications in machine vision, mobile phone cameras, eyeglasses, image surveillance systems, target tracking, biometrics, and electronic displays. Unlike a glass lens whose focal length is fixed, the focal length of an adaptive lens can be tuned by changing the refractive index of the employed medium or the shape of the surface profile For the former mechanism, liquid crystal (LC) is an effective medium because its optical anisotropy and dielectric anisotropy can be varied by an electric field. In comparison with the abovementioned LC lens, which is based on refractive index change, the adaptive lens based on surface profile change presents a large dynamic range, scalable aperture, and better optical performances Various approaches, such as an elastic membrane [10,11,12], electrowetting effect [13,14,15], dielectrophoretic effect [16,17,18], ferrofluidic piston actuation [19,20,21], Appl.
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