Fast refocusing lens based on ferroelectric liquid crystals

Optical devices like virtual reality (VR) headsets present challenges in terms of vergence-accommodation conflict that leads to visual fatigue for the user over time. Lenses available to meet these challenges include liquid crystal (LC) lenses, which possess a response time in the millisecond range....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics express 2021-03, Vol.29 (6), p.8258-8267
Main Authors: Mukherjee, Souptik, Yuan, Zheng-Nan, Sun, Zhi-Bo, Li, An-Ran, Kang, Chen-Bing, Kwok, Hoi-Sing, Srivastava, Abhishek K
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Optical devices like virtual reality (VR) headsets present challenges in terms of vergence-accommodation conflict that leads to visual fatigue for the user over time. Lenses available to meet these challenges include liquid crystal (LC) lenses, which possess a response time in the millisecond range. This response time is slow, while accessing multiple focal lengths. A ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) has a response time in the microsecond range. In this article, we disclose a switchable lens device having a combination of the fast FLC-based polarization rotation unit and a passive polarization-dependent LC lens. A cascaded combination of three such lens units allows access to eight different focal points quite rapidly and can be a convenient device for VR applications.
ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.417112