Tunable liquid microlens arrays in electrode-less configuration and their accurate characterization by interference microscopy

Opt Express. 2009 Feb 16;17(4):2487-99. doi: 10.1364/oe.17.002487.

Abstract

A special class of tunable liquid microlenses is presented here. The microlenses are generated by an electrowetting effect under an electrode-less configuration and they exhibit two different regimes that are named here as separated lens regime (SLR) and wave-like lens regime (WLR). The lens effect is induced by the pyroelectricity of polar dielectric crystals, as was proved in principle in a previous work by the same authors (S. Grilli et al., Opt. Express 16, 8084, 2008). Compared to that work, the improvements to the experimental set-up and procedure allow to reveal the two lens regimes which exhibit different optical properties. A digital holography technique is used to reconstruct the transmitted wavefront during focusing and a focal length variation in the millimetre range is observed. The tunability of such microlenses could be of great interest to the field of micro-optics thanks to the possibility to achieve focus tuning without moving parts and thus favouring the miniaturization of the optical systems.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Electrodes
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Holography / instrumentation*
  • Lenses*
  • Microscopy, Polarization / methods*
  • Miniaturization
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Solutions

Substances

  • Solutions