ABSTRACT
Miniaturization is an essential trend in the design of portable devices. Motor-driven lens technology is a traditional way to achieve autofocus and optical zoom functions. This approach usually requires considerable space and consumes significant power. Reflective optics is a methodology that not only can fold the optical path, but it has the advantage of low chromatic aberration. In this paper, we use a deformable mirror as a reflecting element in an optical zoom system. For its low Young's modulus and residual stress, we choose polydimethylsiloxane as a deformable membrane that can provide a large stroke. The optical zoom module consists of a pair of micromachined deformable mirrors. The thickness of this module is 10 mm, which enables 2× optical zoom. The smallest effective focal length is 4.7 mm at a full field angle of 52°, and the f-number is 4.4. The largest effective focal length of the module is 9.4 mm, and the f-number is 6.4.
ABSTRACT
The conventional auto-focus and zoom image systems were made by a set of motor-moved lenses. Because of mechanical moving parts, it is not easy to miniaturize their sizes. In this paper, we propose a thin autofocus system using a large stroke MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) deformable mirror which has the potential to downscale the size and to minimize chromatic aberration. The large stroke MEMS deformable mirror is made by a polyimide membrane that has a maximum 12 microm displacement over a 3 mm aperture. The module size is 5.4 mm thick in optical design layout and 6.7 mm after packaging. This autofocus system is designed with the f-number=4.13, on-axis MTF=0.28 at full frequency of 230 cycles/mm, and incident light within+/-26 degree. The position of clear image can vary from 4 cm to 50 cm achieved by controlling the surface curvature of the MEMS deformable mirror.
