Tunable Liquid Crystal Lenses and Their Applications

Abstract

Liquid crystal (LC) lens with transparent multiple ring electrodes and circular electrode inside is proposed for controlling spherical and conical lens-like optical phase retardations. Almost circular interference fringes can be smoothly tuned by adjusting the voltage applied across each patterned-electrode and the common flat electrode. The spherical and conical lens-like properties can be obtained, and the focal lengths at an optical axis can also be estimated by a ray tracing calculation resulting from the experimental phase retardation distribution.