Fast-response liquid crystal lens for 3D displays

Three-dimensional (3D) display has become an increasingly important technology trend for information display applications. Dozens of different 3D display solutions have been proposed. The autostereoscopic 3D display based on lenticular microlens array is a promising approach, and fast-switching microlens array enables this system to display both 3D and conventional 2D images. Here we report two different fast-response microlens array designs. The first one is a blue phase liquid crystal lens driven by the Pedot: PSS resistive film electrodes. This BPLC lens exhibits several attractive features, such as polarization insensitivity, fast response time, simple driving scheme, and relatively low driving voltage, as compared to other BPLC lens designs. The second lens design has a double-layered structure. The first layer is a polarization dependent polymer microlens array, and the second layer is a thin twisted-nematic (TN) liquid crystal cell. When the TN cell is switched on/off, the traversing light through the polymeric lens array is either focused or defocused, so that 2D/3D images are displayed correspondingly. This lens design has low driving voltage, fast response time, and simple driving scheme. Simulation and experiment demonstrate that the performance of both switchable lenses meet the requirement of 3D display system design.