Tunable fly's-eye lens made of patterned polymer-dispersed liquid crystal

A fly's-eye lens was fabricated using polymer-dispersed liquid crystals and its optical properties were evaluated. The morphologies were examined under an optical microscope. The forming process has been simulated based on a patterned photo-polymerization technique in which the spatially modulated reaction rate has been coupled with the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equations with the free energies relating to isotropic mixing, nematic ordering, and network elasticity incorporated. The simulated results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The beam profile was tested using a CCD. The results showed that this fly's-eye lens could modulate a Gaussian beam into a mesa-like beam. Such device is potentially useful in beam shaping and many illumination systems that require uniform beam profile. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.