Liquid Crystal Microlens Using Nanoparticle-Induced Vertical Alignment

Hermaphroditic liquid-crystal microlens.

We demonstrate a flat microlens that exhibits hermaphroditic focusing properties. When the input polarization is parallel (perpendicular) to the liquid-crystal directors, the lens exhibits a positive (negative) focal length. To select the proper polarization, we could rotate the polarizer (or the lens) mechanically or by use of an electrically controlled twisted nematic liquid-crystal cell. Det...

Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Microlens

Electrically tunable liquid crystal microlenses have attracted strong research attention due to their advantages of tunable focusing, voltage actuation, low power consumption, simple fabrication, compact structure, and good stability. They are expected to be essential optical devices with widespread applications. However, the slow response time of nematic liquid crystal (LC) microlenses has bee...

Directed Vertical Alignment Liquid Crystal Display with Fast Switching

Liquid-crystal microlens arrays using patterned polymer networks.

A real-time dynamically tunable-focus microlens array made from a polymer-liquid-crystal (LC) composite is demonstrated. The polymer was first patterned in microlens array cavities by lamination, and the LC-monomer mixture was then injected to the molded polymer cavities and finally stabilized by UV light-induced networks. Using this new fabrication method, we demonstrated a lens with a spheric...

Polarizer-free liquid crystal display with double microlens array layers and polarization-controlling liquid crystal layer.

We propose a polarizer-free liquid crystal display (LCD) consisting of two microlens array (MLA) layers, a twisted nematic (TN) LC layer, and two light-blocking masks. By changing the polarization state, focal length of the LCD can be controlled. Since two light-blocking masks have a circular stop pattern and a complementary open pattern, entire gray-scale spectrum may be realized by controllin...