Design and fabrication of fluid controlled dynamic optical lens system

A novel small fluid controlled optical lens system that is capable of displaying dynamic variation of its focal length and field-of-view (FOV) is designed and fabricated. In this active lens system, appropriate volume of the optical fluid can be pumped into or out of the lens chamber to provide double-convex (DCX) or double-concave (DCV) lens effect. Simple optical imaging experiments were performed using different sets of glass lenses with fixed focal lengths to determine the optimum lens configuration required for designing a dynamic optical lens system. The experimental results obtained from the glass lenses demonstrate that a combination of a single DCX lens with three DCV lenses provides a wider FOV. The flexible membranes for fluid controlled lenses were fabricated using polydimethylsiloxane polymer material, which has good optical transparency and elasticity. A simple fluid injection system is used to vary the radius of curvature of the lenses, and thereby to change the focal length. A dynamic optical lens system with a combination of one DCX and multiple variable focal length DCV lenses as designed here can image an object with a wide range of focal length and FOV. With this fluid controlled optical system, the FOV and focal length could be continuously varied and a maximum FOV of 118.3° could be achieved. The smallest f-number (f_/#) for this fluid controlled single lens system was found to be 1.3, which corresponds to the numerical aperture value of 0.35.     

Pulsed gas lenses

The concept of a pulsed gas lens is proposed. Potential applications are envisaged and preliminary experiments with pulsed ray refraction are reported.     

Scratch and Abrasion Resistant Coatings on Plastic Lenses—State of the Art,Current Developments and Perspectives

The manufacturing of ophthalmic lenses is one of the most important markets worldwide and, therefore, strong research efforts are undertaken to continuously improve the quality of the products, either silicate glasses or organic polymer lenses. Hybrid sol-gel based materials play a major role in this highly competitive field and have contributed significantly to the commercial success of the organic base materials. Recent developments concern fast curing and patternable coatings that might soon become part of this business. The compatibility of hybrid sol-gel materials either with organic dyes or with inorganic vacuum borne coatings offers further possibilities to develop highly sophisticated lenses meeting not only customer needs like perfect corrective function, high optical quality and protection, but also high durability as well as cosmetic and decorative aspects. An overview and a few recent developments are outlined below.     

Application of Phosphorus-31 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrosocopy for the Study of Human Diabetic Cataractogenesis

Intact human Senses incubated at 5.5 mM (normal) and 35.5 mM glucose were examined by phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P NMR) spectroscopy. Lense in 35.5 mM glucose showed an altered metabolic steady-state characterized by a lowered adenosine triphosphate/inorganic orthophosphate ratio. ³¹P NMR spectroscopy can be used to measure metabolic changes in the lens. This model offers an important means to study dynamic metabolism in the human lens in the setting of diabetic cataractogenesis.     

Influence of floating-ring-electrode on large-aperture liquid crystal lens

Large-aperture liquid crystal (LALC) lens with hole-patterned electrodes possesses small lens power and high addressing voltage because of the thick dielectric layer inserted between the hole-patterned electrode and LC layer. With an embedded narrow floating ring electrode (FRE), the lens power and addressing voltage of the LALC lens could be effectively increased and decreased, respectively. In this study, we analyse the electro-optic performance of LALC lens upon variation of the diameter of the embedded FRE. Results reveal that the FRE diameter determines the electric-field distribution and hence the electro-optic behaviour of the LALC lens. The LALC lens with embedded 2-mm-diameter FRE has excellent lens properties, such as low aberration, high focal quality and modulation transfer function performance comparable with solid glass lens.     

Large‐acceptance diamond planar refractive lenses manufactured by laser cutting

For the first time, single‐crystal diamond planar refractive lenses have been fabricated by laser micromachining in 300 µm‐thick diamond plates which were grown by chemical vapour deposition. Linear lenses with apertures up to 1 mm and parabola apex radii up to 500 µm were manufactured and tested at the ESRF ID06 beamline. The large acceptance of these lenses allows them to be used as beam‐conditioning elements. Owing to the unsurpassed thermal properties of single‐crystal diamond, these lenses should be suitable to withstand the extreme flux densities expected at the planned fourth‐generation X‐ray sources.     

Optical system and lens design for Blu-ray disc optical pick-up

During the design process of Blu-ray disc optical pick-up (BD OPU), the optical system and the collimator lens design is especially important. This paper designs an optical system and some lenses for the BD OPU, including collimator lens, beam shaping lens for laser beam shaping, and cylinder lens for signal detecting. In this OPU, we use a triplet lens to collimate the laser beam. At the same time, we build a series of assembly jigs to make sure that each lens can be put into the OPU basement properly. At last, we get the reading spot image and S-curve photo of OPU, which can be used to read Blu-ray disc (BD).     

Twisting of a Spinning Particle Trajectory in an Absorbing Medium

In the geometric optics approximation, we predict the effect of additional twisting of spinning particle trajectories in an absorbing medium. The effect is determined by the particle polarization (chirality) and the curvature of the particle trajectory. Using our results, we quantitatively estimate the deviation from the mirror reflection law for ultracold neutrons.     

Simplified system configuration for real-time Fourier transformation of optical pulses in amplitude and phase

Real-time Fourier transformation (RTFT) of optical waveforms in amplitude and phase (i.e. transform-limited RTFT) is a fundamental operation that enables the realization of many interesting ultrafast signal processing applications, including wavelength-tunable optical pulse filtering, all-optical temporal correlations and convolutions and temporal imaging, among others. In this paper, we demonstrate that under certain conditions, a single time lens (quadratic-phase temporal modulator) followed by a suitable dispersive delay line can be used to implement transform-limited RTFT of optical pulses. The design specifications and constraints of the proposed transform-limited RTFT systems are derived and discussed. As compared with the conventional methods, the proposed design does not require the use of an input dispersive device preceding the time lens or a second time lens after dispersion, thus resulting in a simpler and more practical alternative for implementing TL-RTFT of optical signals. The feasibility of our proposal to operate on picosecond optical waveforms using electro-optic time lenses has been confirmed by numerical simulations.     

Polymer network liquid crystal grating/Fresnel lens fabricated by holography

In this article, polymer network liquid crystal (PNLC) grating/Fresnel lens is fabricated by holography. The exposure light pattern for the grating is obtained by interfering two planar wave fronts, while the Fresnel pattern is achieved by interfering a planar wave front and a spherical wave front. Owing to the alignment effect and anchoring power of polymer network, the holographic PNLC grating achieves improved diffraction efficiency, and remarkably reduced operation voltage (reduced by 80%) compared with holographic polymer-dispersed-liquid-crystal and holographic polymer-stabilised blue-phase liquid-crystal gratings, while maintaining submillisecond response. Moreover, it achieves high spatial frequency with a 2-μm grating period, thanks to the holographic fabrication. The holographic PNLC Fresnel lens also exhibits attractive electro-optical properties.