New Tuneable Liquid Crystal Lens Technology Does…A Bunch of Things

Proof that people with no life are more useful than party animals is a new type of tuneable liquid-crystal lens whose focus can be changed by applying voltage to it. Created by US physicists, the new device is said to be better than current liquid-crystal lenses because it only has small astigmatism and does not scatter light. We don’t know what they meant by that but they say their new invention could be used for zoom lenses and other microphotonic devices.

Why are they better? Most liquid-crystal lenses exploit the fact that liquid-crystal molecules can change the way they point in an electric field. Now, if the field is big enough, they all line up like meek, lobotomized sheep in the direction of the field. This changes its refractive index and the focusing power.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Proof that people with no life are more useful than party animals is a new type of tuneable liquid-crystal lens whose focus can be changed by applying voltage to it. Created by US physicists, the new device is said to be better than current liquid-crystal lenses because it only has small astigmatism and does not scatter light. We don’t know what they meant by that but they say their new invention could be used for zoom lenses and other microphotonic devices.

Why are they better? Most liquid-crystal lenses exploit the fact that liquid-crystal molecules can change the way they point in an electric field. Now, if the field is big enough, they all line up like meek, lobotomized sheep in the direction of the field. This changes its refractive index and the focusing power.

Now settle down, we havent gotten to the good stuff yet. The new lens, built by University of Central Florida researchers, allow the focus to be changed in a new way. You see, the device consists of a mixture of liquid-crystal molecules and smaller N-vinylpyrrollidone monomers (bet you can’t read that without moving your lips) placed between two glass substrates. Each substrate is coated with a thin transparent layer of indium tin oxide. Isn’t this the same stuff they used on Christina Aguilera’s hair? Then they placed a concave glass lens with a flat base on top of one of the substrates. Hey, take a valium. We still haven’t told you the good part.

Without any voltage, the liquid-crystal/monomer mixture was uniformly distributed throughout the substrates. But when a voltage was applied across the two substrates, the liquid-crystal molecules clumped together at the both ends of the gap. The monomers moved towards the middle of the gap, where the juice was lower. This concentration gradient created a refractive index. The device therefore functioned as a lens. To test this thingy, the researchers firied a helium-neon laser through it and focusing the light on a CCD camera. The researchers were able to increase the lens’s focal length simply by turning up the voltage across the device. 

Because no molecular reorientation is involved, the new lens do not have the strong astigmatism (lens won’t focus properly), distortion or light scattering during focus change. Only problem is it takes about three minutes for the lens to focus. By that time, Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster would have gone back into hiding after cavorting  right before your eyes. However, this should not be problem in micro-sized lenses. At that size estimated response time is around 1 second at room temperature. The new tuneable liquid crystal lens could also be used to make other adaptive microdevices such as prism arrays and phase gratings.  See! We told you they were good for something. Now you can let it rip.