Liquid crystals are well known for their display applications (LCDs), but they are known much less for their use in practical (real) optical imaging or vision systems. In reality, those materials have been explored during several decades to develop electrically variable lenses. Their performance optimization requires particular trade-offs that depend upon the specific application.
In some cases, (such as mobile phone miniature cameras or ophthalmic), they perform rather well by providing low power consumption and miniature alternatives for mechanical systems.
Our presentation will describe recent results obtained by one of the lens designs. In this design, the peripheral electrode segmentation is used to dynamically obtain various wavefront profiles, without any electrode pixel within the clear aperture of the lens. Potential applications of this approach will be presented, for example, in the field of adaptive endoscopy. Thus, the focus tuning and correction of wavefront asymmetry will be demonstrated. In addition, those lenses may provide unique capability of dynamic adjustment of the wavefront’s shape by creating prism like and other complex profiles, generating various non diffracting beams.
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