Liquid lens Applications

Electrowetting enables to manipulate the liquid interface shape, in order to create various optical functions or optical corrections.
Possible applications of liquid lenses are too many and too diverse to be all mentioned, but the list below can serve as a starting point for innovative thinking for new products, new applications or improved performance.

Digital imaging applications

  • Very fast image capture
  • Very fast Auto Focus mode (non sequential algorithms)
  • Capture of multiple images at different focus positions, for objects from infinity to a few cm
  • Reconstruction of a 3D map from captured depth information
  • Correction of handshake movements in real time
  • Super-resolution

Non- imaging applications

  • Laser focusing in X,Y and Z axes (with Baltic series)
  • Laser de-cohering
  • Wave front correction (adaptive optics, ophtalmology)
  • Light dispersing for illumination
  • Longitudinal spectrometry
  • Feedback loops for fine optical adjustments
  • Active control of beam deviations

Multiple lens configurations in a single body

The flexibility of liquid lens packaging allows having a single external body for several products, allowing very high flexibility in product design and evolution.

Varioptic liquid lens external packaging

Inside the liquid lens, the different optical functions can be produced using different designs with specific electrodes patterns and different liquids.

A few examples:

Fast light focusing for imaging or beam control applications

 Single electrode lens Liquid interface is a sphere, with a variable radius as a function of voltage

Fast light beam focusing and tilting for XYZ control of the optical rays.

 Quad-electrode lens The liquid interface is a sphere of adjustable radius and arbitrary tilts

Arbitrary Zernike correction

 Multiple electrode lens

 With eight electrodes, the liquid interface can include Zernike corrections for:
- Sphere
- Tilt
- Cylinder (or astigmatism)

Electrowetting: a voltage variation induces a change in the contact angle of the fluid and effectively creates a lens with the precise desired properties.