• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2021

In this paper, we review papers which report to the all solid-state electroactive polymer-based tunable lens. Since electroactive polymer-based tunable lenses change their focal length by responding to electric stimuli, it can be minimized the size and weight of optical modules. Thus, it has been received attention in the robot, mobile device and display industry. The all solid-state electroactive polymer-based tunable lenses can be classified into two categories depending on the classification of materials: ionic electroactive polymer-based lenses and non-ionic electroactive polymer-based lenses. Most of the ionic electroactive polymer-based tunable lenses are fabricated with ionic polymer-metal composite. So, the ionic electroactive polymer-based tunable lenses can be operated under low electric voltage. But small force, slow recovery time and environmental limitation for operation has been pointed to the disadvantage of the lenses. The non-ionic electroactive polymer-based tunable lenses are classified again into two categories: dielectric polymer-based tunable lenses and polyvinylchloride gel-based tunable lenses. The advantage of the dielectric polymer-based tunable lenses is fast response to electric stimuli. But the essential flexible electrodes degrade performance of the lens. Polyvinylchloride gel-based tunable lens has reported impressive performance without flexible electrodes.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.104-113
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• 2022

We present a method to count the overall length of the zoom system in an initial design stage. In a zoom-lens design using the concept of the group, it has been very hard to precisely estimate the overall length at all zoom positions through the previous paraxial studies. To solve this difficulty, we introduce T_eq as a measure of the total track length in an equivalent zoom system, which can be found from the first order parameters obtained by solving the zoom equations. Among many solutions, the parameters that provide the smallest T_eq are selected to construct a compact initial zoom system. Also, to obtain an 8× four-group zoom system without moving groups, tunable polymer lenses (TPLs) have been introduced as a variator and a compensator. The final designed zoom lens has a short overall length of 29.99 mm, even over a wide focal-length range of 4-31 mm, and an f-number of F/3.5 at wide to F/4.5 at tele position, respectively.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.88-94
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• 2015

This paper reports the fabrication of a lenticular liquid crystal (LC) lens array with thermally tunable focus and with the function of a convertible lens type, using the surface structure of a UV-curable polymer and a twisted-nematic (TN) LC cell. The TN LC cell makes the LC lenticular lens function as a converging or diverging lens by controlling electrically the polarization of input light. Therefore, the focal lengths for both the converging and diverging lenses, which can be switched from the TN cell, can be tuned by changing the effective refractive index of the LC by Joule heating of the transparent electrode. As a result, the focal length of the lens with the E7 LC was changed continuously from 8.7 to 31.2 mm for the converging lens type and from -9.8 to -14.2 mm for the diverging lens when the temperature was increased from 25 to $56^{\circ}C$.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.181-186
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• 2009

We fabricated ordered micro/nano patterns induced by controlled dewetting on the topographically patterned PS/P4VP bilayer thin film. The method is based on utilizing microimprinting lithography to induce a topographically heterogeneous bilayer film that allows the controlled dewetting upon subsequent thermal annealing. The dewetting that was initiated strictly at the boundary of the thicker and thinner regions was guided by the presence of the topographic structure. The dewetting front velocity of the microdomains in the confined regions was linearly proportional to the measurement time, which enabled us to control the size of the dewet domain with annealing time. In particular, the submicron sized dot arrays between lines were generated with ease when the dewetting was confined into geometry with a few microns in size. The kinetically driven, non-lithographical pattern structures accompanied the pattern reduction to 400%. The pattern arrays on a transparent glass substrate were especially useful for non-circular microlens arrays where the focal length of the lens was easily tunable by controlling the thermal annealing.