Modeling and design of an optimized patterned electrode liquid crystal microlens array with dielectric slab

To eliminate the occurrence of disclination lines in the hole patterned electrode liquid crystal microlens array (LC MLA), inserting an ultrathin dielectric slab was proved to be an effective method. The thickness of the dielectric slab played an important role in effecting the optical performance of the liquid crystal microlens array device, including the dynamic focal range, focus diameter and symmetry of phase profile. In this paper, we studied the effect of dielectric slab thickness on the optical performance of the liquid crystal microlens array by numerical simulation. It is indicated that the optical performance of the device could be improved by reducing the dielectric slab thickness, assuming that the dielectric slab thickness was larger than the threshold thickness. The dependence of the threshold thickness on some key parameters was investigated and the associated effect on the optical performance by changing these key parameters was also studied. In the end, the approaches to enhance the optical performance, namely the dynamic focal range of the liquid crystal microlens array was proposed and proved to be in effect by numerical simulation results.