Deformable Liquid Lens Elements

[9V-Orion Images]

Was at the transit lounge in changi airport waiting for mine flight, when i heard 2 caucasians talking about a university project with the term "deformable liquid lens elements". Want home and google to learn more about it, not much of an answer for a layman like me though.

Anyone kind to enlighten?

 

[Rashkae]

i think Philips showed this off a couple years ago. In essence, it works much like the lens in the human eye. Instead of glass, make it a clear substance that's liquid. Compress at the edges and you change the focal point of the lens.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Could it be a top-secret project for the next-next-next generation of EOS lenses? :bsmilie:

 

[Rashkae]

Could it be a top-secret project for the next-next-next generation of EOS lenses? :bsmilie:

Canon? Give up their "we are so proud of our fluorite lenses" stance? Naaah.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Found some informations over here...

... the use of liquid could be a solution to the problem of low spatial resolution inherent to most solid-state deformable mirrors. Only a few research efforts on liquid-based deformable mirrors have been reported. For the last three decades, only two liquid-based deformable mirrors were proposed and demonstrated. These two design concepts are based on electromagnetic actuation.

This thesis presents a new design concept of a liquid-based deformable mirror, based on electro-capillary actuation. This new design offers advantages compared with solid mechanical mirrors and the other liquid-based deformable mirrors (LDM). These advantages include, among others, 1) a very high umber of actuators, 2) lower power dissipation, 3) low-cost fabrication 4) an initially flat surface, among others.

The proposed LDM consists of an array of vertically oriented capillaries filled with two immiscible liquids, an conducting liquid and a dielectric liquid, where the dielectric liquid overfills the top end of the channels and forms a thin layer on top. A free-floating reflective membrane is utilized to remedy the problem of the low reflectivity of a pure liquid surface.The fundamental issues relating to the proposed device such as the propagation of surface waves on the liquid, how fast the liquid reacts to the actuation signal, and the shape of the surface when deformed are studied numerically.

Numerical simulation shows that the propagation of surface waves can be damped in less than a millisecond depending on the viscosity of the top liquid being used. From the numerical simulation, the response time of the proposed device turns out to be in the order of few milliseconds (¡ 10ms)...

Wow, chim. This is way over mine head.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

i think Philips showed this off a couple years ago. In essence, it works much like the lens in the human eye. Instead of glass, make it a clear substance that's liquid. Compress at the edges and you change the focal point of the lens.

Are you referring to something like this? Liquid lens with variable focal range for handphone in-built camera.

Image hot-linked to the mentioned article.

Any chance that similar technology will find its way into consumer and professional-grade DSLR lenses in the future?

 

[Rashkae]

Any chance that similar technology will find its way into consumer and professional-grade DSLR lenses in the future?

That's the one, yup.

Well... I doubt it. I think it'll be very very very hard to reproduce the sharpness and accuracy of finely-designed glass.

Also, being liquid, it would be more prone to vibrations due to handshake, etc.

 

[rotisiao]

i thought previously there was an article online which highlighted that it is currently more viable to really small lenses like microscopes? Dont think it will find its way to DSLRs any time soon.

 

[JoshSiao]

Here's one version of deformable liquid lens elements in the form of cheap spectacles for the world's poor.

http://www.gizmag.com/retired-physi...cles-for-the-worlds-poor/10737/picture/62602/

 

[9V-Orion Images]

i thought previously there was an article online which highlighted that it is currently more viable to really small lenses like microscopes? Dont think it will find its way to DSLRs any time soon.

From mine little research, there are also R&D efforts in developing liquid-based adaptive and deformable optics for extremely high-powered telescope (observatory-size). Imagine if the technologies involved are to be shrink down, so as to be viable for use in DSLR lenses.

Being just liquid would make the lenses extremely light, might be cheap to manufacture also? No fear of mirrors cracking, if you drop your lens. If the fluid leaks when dropped, i guessed you can always proceed to the service center for a quick refill and calibration. :bsmilie:

I don't realistically see this happening anytime soon. So just let me daydream. :bsmilie: