Refractive-type varifocal liquid-crystal Fresnel lenses for smart contacts

We demonstrate the implementation of a low-power, low-profile, varifocal liquidcrystal Fresnel lens stack suitable for tunable imaging in smart contact lenses. The lens stack consists of a high-order refractive-type liquid crystal Fresnel chamber, a voltage-controlled twisted nematic cell, a linear polarizer and a fixed offset lens. The lens stack has an aperture of 4 mm and thickness is -980 mu m. The varifocal lens requires -2.5 VRMS for a maximum optical power change of -6.5 D consuming electrical power of -2.6 mu W. The maximum RMS wavefront aberration error was 0.2 mu m and the chromatic aberration was 0.008 D/nm. The average BRISQUE image quality score of the Fresnel lens was 35.23 compared to 57.23 for a curved LC lens of comparable power indicating a superior Fresnel imaging quality.

Automated summary

We demonstrate the implementation of a low-power, low-profile, varifocal liquid-crystal Fresnel lens stack suitable for tunable imaging in smart contact lenses. The lens stack consists of a high-order refractive-type liquid crystal Fresnel chamber, a voltage-controlled twisted nematic cell, a linear polarizer, and a fixed offset lens. The lens stack has an aperture of 4 mm and a thickness of -980 μm. The varifocal lens requires -2.5 VRMS for a maximum optical power change of -6.5 D consuming electrical power of -2.6 μW. The maximum RMS wavefront aberration error was 0.2 μm, and the chromatic aberration was 0.008 D/nm. The average BRISQUE image quality score of the Fresnel lens was 35.23 compared to 57.23 for a curved LC lens of comparable power, indicating superior Fresnel imaging quality.