Electrically tunable large aperture liquid crystal lens with dual hole-patterned electrodes

Abstract

An electrically tunable large aperture liquid crystal (LALC) lens consisting of dual hole-patterned electrodes with different diameters is demonstrated. The proposed LALC lens can realize a tunable focal length and a switchable optical aperture by changing the driving models (DM). The experimental results show that the focal length of the LALC lens ranges from 325 mm to 220 mm when the operating voltage is changed from 24 V to 66 V by DM1, and it varies from 310 mm to 200 mm with the supplied voltages of 24–59 V by DM2. The optical aperture of the LALC lens can be switched between 4 mm-diameter and 5 mm-diameter. Furthermore, the turn-on time is significantly decreased by the over-driving method. Because of its low root mean square (RMS) error (<0.08 λ), the LALC lens, as an ideal optical lens, can exhibit excellent imaging performance in the optical imaging system. These results demonstrate that the proposed LALC lens has potential applications in the fields of imaging, biometrics and optical data storage because of its tunable focal length and switchable optical apertures.