Abstract
Most of lenses embedded in optical devices used today are as hard as a glass and not deformable. Therefore, it is necessary to move the positions of the lenses in focusing and zooming. Actual optical devices sometimes become complex and large. In order to solve these problems, here we propose deformable lens system by virtue of high-strength, transparent and transformable hydrogels. We applied both double network gels (DNG) and shape-memory gels (SMG) to the deformable lens system, and evaluate the system for both DNG and SMG. In this system, a water layer is sandwiched between two gel sheets to compose a variable focus lens. By changing the water pressure of the water layer, the radius of convex curvature of the gel sheet surface can be controlled, and the focal length of the lens can be adjusted. It is found that the lens system performed well for both the DNG and SMG. For the SMG, the focal length can be fixed due to the shape memory properties of the SMG.
