Zoom System Realized Using Liquid Crystal Lenses

Abstract

A zoom lens system with no moving elements is reported. The system is composed of three lenses: one glass lens and two liquid crystal (LC) ones almost identical in structure. The focal length of the LC lenses is tunable from negative to positive with two independent applied voltages. The two LC lenses are placed on two sides of the glass lens, and the positions of all lenses are fixed. The image size is changed and the image position on the CCD image sensor plane is maintained by tuning the focal length of each LC lens. The lens power of the LC lenses ranges from −14.7 to 14.0 m⁻¹. Clear images are obtained at various values of the applied voltages and the zoom ratio is approximately 1:2.