Liquid Crystal Lens Array with Thermally Controllable Focal Length and Electrically Convertible Lens Type

This paper reports the fabrication of a lenticular liquid crystal (LC) lens array with thermally tunablefocus and with the function of a convertible lens type, using the surface structure of a UV-curable polymerand a twisted-nematic (TN) LC cell. The TN LC cell makes the LC lenticular lens function as a convergingor diverging lens by controlling electrically the polarization of input light. Therefore, the focal lengthsfor both the converging and diverging lenses, which can be switched from the TN cell, can be tuned bychanging the effective refractive index of the LC by Joule heating of the transparent electrode. As a result,the focal length of the lens with the E7 LC was changed continuously from 8.7 to 31.2 mm for theconverging lens type and from -9.8 to -14.2 mm for the diverging lens when the temperature was increasedfrom 25 to 56°C KCI Citation Count: 4