IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO.
14, JULY 15, 2016
Optical Switchable Electrowetting Lens
Lei Li, Chao Liu, Hongwen Ren, and Qiong-Hua Wang
Abstract— The authors report an optical switchable lens using
an electrowetting liquid lens. The optical switchable lens is
obtained through two different paths, either the annular aperture
or the central aperture of the liquid lens. Three polarizers and
a liquid crystal cell are used as a light shutter for the two-path
transition. A prototype is demonstrated, and the authors analyzed
the properties of the switchable electrowetting liquid lens.
In contrast to the conventional liquid lenses, our lens system can
present high optical power with high resolution for the path of
annular aperture, while it can reduce the aberrations and extend
the depth of field for the path of central clear aperture. Our lens
system has potential applications in target tracking, biomedical
science, imaging security, and portable electronic devices.
Index Terms— Liquid lens, electrowetting, liquid crystal.
L IQUID lenses and liquid crystal lenses are viewed as
the next generation lenses [1]–[10]. In the past decades,
various liquid lenses are proposed, including mechanical,
electrowetting and dielectrophoretic liquid lenses. These lenses
have potential applications in many areas such as imaging,
optical communication, illumination and so on. In recent
years, liquid lenses have been successfully commercialized.
Researchers begin to use a liquid lens as an element
in imaging system for light-weight and miniature system
purpose. For example, three liquid lenses in contact [11]
are proposed to correct spherical and chromatic aberrations.
Also, various zoom lens systems based on liquid lenses have
been proposed [12]–[15]. In these systems, liquid lenses can
change their focal length without moving parts and achieve
good imaging performances. However, the system is still bulky
because a solid lens has to be used as a complementary
lens in order to get high optical power or reduce aberrations
in the system. In our previous publication [16], an annular
folded electrowetting lens is proposed to improve the optical
power with compact structure. However, the imaging quality is
greatly degraded for low and middle-spatial frequency target.
In previous imaging systems, it is very difficult to use one
liquid lens for imaging. It is mainly because of two reasons:
one is the limited optical power which prevents the liquid lens
to be used in imaging systems due to two phase structure, and
the other is the large aberrations caused by its large curvature.
Manuscript received October 21, 2015; revised April 4, 2016; accepted
April 13, 2016. Date of publication April 21, 2016; date of current version
May 12, 2016. This work was supported in part by the 973 Program under
Grant 2013CB328802 and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China under Grant 61225022, Grant 61320106015, and Grant 61505127.
L. Li, C. Liu, and Q.-H. Wang are with the School of Electronics
and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
(e-mail: ccll117@163.com; 371573830@qq.com; qhwang@cdnet.edu.cn).
H. Ren is with the Department of Polymer Nano-Science and Engineering,
Chonbuk National University, Jeonju 561-756, South Korea (e-mail:
hongwen@jbnu.ac.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LPT.2016.2555991
1041-1135 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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Therefore, if the optical power of a lens can be increased
and its aberrations can be reduced in the range of short focal
length, then the imaging system using a liquid lens can be
further miniaturized with low cost.
In this Letter, we propose an optical switchable
electrowetting liquid lens. The proposed liquid lens has
two independent optical paths for switching through an
annular aperture and a central clear aperture. For the annular
aperture path, the optical path is folded in the liquid lens,
thus the optical power is increased and image resolution is
improved. For the central clear aperture path, the aberrations
are reduced due to eliminating the aberrations caused by
marginal ray, and the depth of field is also extended. Our
device switches between two paths by an optical shutter
composed of three polarizers and a LC cell. The liquid
lens is electrowetting actuated. Therefore, our switchable
electrowetting lens can be controlled by a voltage with no
moving part. Compared with our previous work [16], a TN
LC shutter is used to make the electrowetting lens to switch
between the annular aperture mode and the central clear
aperture mode. In this way, our lens can take advantage of
either high resolution or reduced aberration.
The cross-sectional cell structure and the operating
mechanism of our liquid lens are depicted in Fig. 1. Oil,
a conductive liquid, and glass substrates consist of the main
body. The front glass substrate is coated with a ring-shaped
reflection film. The back glass substrate is coated with a
larger ring-shaped reflection film. Polarizers are adhered to
the annular aperture and the central clear aperture on the front
glass substrate, respectively. The two polarizers are orthogonal.
A LC cell is fixed on the back glass substrate. The LC
cell is a 90° twisted-nematic (TN) cell. A third polarizer is
adhered to the back surface of the TN cell. In initial state,
Polarizer 1 is orthogonal to Polarizer 2 and Polarizer 3. Thus
the optical path through the annular aperture is open because
the TN layer rotates the polarization of the incident light by
90 degrees, while the central aperture path is closed. For this
state, the incoming light is reflected by the front and back
reflection films, as shown in Fig. 1(b). In this way, the optical
power is tripled. What’s more, due to annular aperture, the
light intensity in the incoherent point-spread function (PSF) is
moved from the central peak into the side lobes. The diameter
of the central spot is reduced. Thus, the optical performance in
high-spatial frequency range will be improved. When a voltage
is applied on the LC cell, the LC directors are reoriented to
be perpendicular to that of initial state. The incoming light
experiences little phase change. Thus the annular aperture
path is closed, while the central aperture path is open, as
shown in Fig. 1(c). In this state, the marginal ray is blocked,
so that the aberration is reduced and the depth of field is
extended.
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Fig. 1. Cross-sectional structure of the switchable electrowetting liquid lens.
(a) Cell structure. (b) Annular aperture mode. (c) Central clear aperture mode.
For our liquid lens, the focal length is changed due
to electrowetting effect. According to Young–Lippmann
equation, the relationship of the contact angle θ and the applied
voltage U can be described as follows [1]:
γ1 − γ2 ε LC cell is used as a polarization converter (n o = 1.521,
cos θ = + U 2, (1)
γ12 2γ12 d
where ε is dielectric constant of the insulating layer, d is
the thickness of the insulating layer. γ1 , γ2 and γ12 are
the interfacial tensions of sidewall/oil, sidewall/water and
oil/water, respectively.
The two different paths are switched by the 90° TN cell.
For the 90° TN cell, in voltage-off state, the LC alignment is
parallel to the optical axis of the front polarizer (Polarizer 1)
while the bottom LC directors are rotated 90° and parallel to
the optical axis of back polarizer (Polarizer 3). The incoming
light is rotated by helical structure. In voltage-on state, the
LC directors are reoriented to perpendicular to the substrates.
The incoming light experiences little phase change. The light
transmittance T is described by the following formula [17]:
 our liquid lens, for the negative power, only Mode 2 can be
T = cos2 X + ( cos 2β)2 sin2 X, (2)
 2X
X = ϕ 2 + (/2)2 , (3)
n We evaluated the imaging performance using a 1951 USAF
 = 2πd , (4)
λ resolution target. CMOS camera was used to record the image.
IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 14, JULY 15, 2016
Fig. 2. Fabricated switchable electrowetting lens. (a) Front surface. (b) Back
surface. (c) Polarizers on front surface. (d) TN cell with a polarizer. (e) Whole
device.
where β is the angle between the polarization axis and the
front LC director. ϕ is the twist angle, and d is the cell gap.
λ is the wavelength, and n is the birefringence, which is
dependent of applied voltage.
A commercialized electrowetting liquid lens Arctic 39N0
produced by Varioptics [18] is used as the lens to fabricate the
optical switchable electrowetting lens. The useful aperture of
the liquid lens is ∼3.9 mm. A ring-shaped silver film is coated
on the front glass substrate. The outer and inner diameters
of the film were designed to be ∼3.1mm and ∼1.3 mm,
as shown in Fig. 2(a). While, the back glass substrate was
coated with a larger ring-shaped silver film with outer diameter
∼3.9mm and inner diameter ∼2.9 mm, as shown in Fig. 2(b).
The polarization axes of Polarizer 1 and Polarizer 2 are
orthogonal. The two polarizers are adhered to the two apertures
respectively, as shown in Fig. 2(c). The 90° twisted-nematic
n = 0.199, Tc = 58 °C). The cell gap is ∼15 μm. The
size of LC cell is ∼21mm × 25 mm × 2.2 mm, as shown in
Fig. 2(d). The whole device is shown in Fig. 2(e).
We define the mode as Mode 1 when the annular aperture
is open, while the mode as Mode 2 when the central clear
aperture is open. We used collimator tube to measure the focal
length of our liquid lens, and compared it with that of the
electrowetting lens. From Fig. 3, we see that, in Mode 2, the
proposed liquid lens has the same focal length tuning range
as that of the electrowetting lens. The tuning ranges are from
32.4mm to infinite for positive power and from infinite to
−66.7mm for negative power, when the voltage varies from
0 to 70V. When we use Mode 1, the tuning range increases
from 14.8 mm to infinite for positive power. However, for
Mode 1, our liquid lens cannot work in negative power. For
used. For short focal length (14.8 to 32.4 mm), only Mode 1
can be used. In the tuning ranges from 32.4 mm to infinite,
both modes can be used.
LI et al.: OPTICAL SWITCHABLE ELECTROWETTING LENS
Fig. 3. Focal length versus the applied voltage.
Fig. 4. MTF and images of a USAF resolution target at f = 45.2mm.
(a) Conventional liquid lens. (b) Proposed liquid lens in Mode 1. (c) Proposed
liquid lens in Mode 2.
The distance between the object and liquid lens is ∼700mm.
The captured pictures and Zemax simulating results are shown
in Fig. 4. Fig. 4 (a) shows the picture captured by the
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conventional liquid lens Arctic 39N0. The applied voltage
is ∼63 V. We see that the picture is a little blurry because
large curvature of the interface causes large aberrations.
We also see that the modulation transfer function (MTF) of
the conventional liquid lens degrades a lot due to aberrations.
For our proposed liquid lens, in Mode 1, although the picture
is also a little blurry due to central obscuration, the resolution
is improved, as shown in Fig.4 (b). The bars in Group 3
number 2 are still resolvable [Fig.4 (b)], but they are not
resolvable for the conventional liquid lens [Fig.4 (a)]. The
reason is as follows. Due to annular aperture, the MTF in
high-spatial frequency range (∼90 lp/mm to ∼130 lp/mm) is
improved. We can see that in high-spatial frequency range, the
MTF of our lens in Mode 1 is over 0.1 [Fig. 4(b)]. However,
for the conventional liquid lens, the MTF almost decreases
to 0 [Fig. 4(a)]. Fig. 4 (c) shows the captured image in Mode 2.
We can see that the bars are much clearer than that of the
conventional liquid lens. It is because that in Mode 2 the
aberrations are reduced by blocking marginal ray. The MTF
almost reaches that of the diffraction limited system. However,
for Mode 2, it is not suitable for high-spatial frequency target.
Because the aperture is smaller than that of the conventional
liquid lens, cut-off frequency is relatively lower. Therefore, the
bars in group 2 number 6 are not resolvable. In the experiment,
for our liquid lens, the applied voltages are ∼52 V on the
liquid lens and 0 V on the LC cell in Mode 1. In Mode 2,
the applied voltage is ∼63V on the liquid lens and ∼2 V
on the LC cell. From the experiments, we can conclude that
the proposed lens can take the advantage of either higher
resolution(Mode 2) or reduced aberrations (Mode1) depending
on different application. The proposed liquid lens can switch
between the two modes by a voltage on the LC cell.
We also built a scene to test the optical performance of our
lens. The scene was placed 2000mm away from the switchable
lens. The depth of the scene is ∼78mm. CMOS camera was
used to record image. We first applied a voltage ∼52V on the
liquid lens and ∼0V on LC cell, respectively. The proposed
liquid lens work in Mode 1. The captured image is shown in
Fig. 5(a). Then we switched the voltage to ∼63V on the liquid
lens, and applied a voltage ∼2V on the LC cell. In this case,
the proposed liquid lens switched to Mode 2. The captured
image is shown in Fig. 5(b). Comparing the two images, on
the whole, the whole scene in Mode 2 seems clearer than that
in Mode 1, and the depth of field in Mode 2 is also larger
than that in Mode 1. However, tiny things such as the word
“image” and the blue patterns in Mode 1 are much clearer
than that in Mode 2. The two modes have different imaging
feature. Mode 2 provides a clearer panoramic view of a scene.
Mode 1 provides a higher resolving ability for high-spatial
frequency target. Therefore, we believe the proposed liquid
lens has potential applications in not only military, medical
science, security areas, but also consumer electronics in our
daily life.
The proposed liquid lens also has drawbacks. Compared
with conventional liquid lenses, the light efficiency is
decreased due to reduced effective aperture and the polarizers.
To reach the same brightness of a picture captured by the
conventional liquid lens, the total exposure time of our liquid
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Fig. 5. Images captured by of the switchable electrowetting liquid lens.
(a) Mode 1. (b) Mode 2.
lens in Mode 1 and Mode 2 is about four times more than
that of the electrowetting lens at least. Besides, the whole size
of our liquid lens is larger than that of a conventional liquid
lens. It is mainly because the used LC cell increases the size
of the bulk. To solve these problems, we can redesign the
LC cell. Nowadays, LC technology is mature, so we believe
it is not difficult to reduce the size of our lens system. For
the proposed lens, due to reflection films, when the incident
light excesses the designed field of view (FOV), it may induce
the path deviation, which may degrade the image resolution.
Therefore, we should design a field stop to limit FOV, so that
all incident light will not deviate.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated an optical switchable
electrowetting lens. Using a LC shutter, the proposed liquid
lens can work with two different modes. Mode 1 provides
larger positive power and higher resolution. Mode 2 provides
high quality image with low aberrations. Our switchable
electrowetting liquid lens can be controlled by a voltage with
no mechanical moving parts. Our lens system has potential
IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 14, JULY 15, 2016
applications in not only military, medical science, security
areas, but also consumer electronics in our daily life.
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