Elastomeric Microlens Arrays With Tunable Focal Length

Microlenses (MLs) and microlens arrays (MLAs) have become vital optical devices in the fields of sensing, imaging, light source, optical fiber communication, and optical interconnects. In this letter, we proposed a new method to fabricate microlens arrays of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with a tunabl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE photonics technology letters 2018-11, Vol.30 (22), p.1952-1955
Main Authors: Sheng, Bin, Wu, He, Luo, Luwen, Huang, Yuanshen, Li, Baicheng, Xu, Banglian, Zhang, Dawei, Zhuang, Songlin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arrays
Digital cameras
Elastomers
Fabrication
Length measurement
Lenses
Measurement by laser beam
micro-optical devices
micro-optics
microlens arrays
Microlenses
Microoptics
Optical communication
Optical device fabrication
Optical fibers
Optical interconnects
Polydimethylsiloxane
Silicone resins
Software reviews
Strain
Tuning
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Summary:Microlenses (MLs) and microlens arrays (MLAs) have become vital optical devices in the fields of sensing, imaging, light source, optical fiber communication, and optical interconnects. In this letter, we proposed a new method to fabricate microlens arrays of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with a tunable focal length by stretching in the radial direction. 3 × 3 PDMS MLAs with a positive focal length can be replicated from the PDMS MLAs with negative focal length using evaporated vaseline film as an isolation layer. By tuning the strain of PDMS film in the replication process or the final PDMS MLAs, the focal length of microlenses on MLAs will change accordingly. Consequently, the focal length of 3 × 3 PDMS MLAs is tuned from 5.7 to 10.6 mm as it is stretched in the radial direction from 0% to 15%. Meanwhile, compressed in the radial direction from 0% to -15 %, the focal length of PDMS MLAs is tuned from 5.7 to 3.4 mm. This technique may have potential applications in the fields of confocal imaging and wavefront sensing.
ISSN:1041-1135
1941-0174
DOI:10.1109/LPT.2018.2873094