Optical zoom camera module using two poly-dimethylsiloxane deformable mirrors.

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.

Polydimethylsiloxane coating on an ionic polymer metallic composite for a tunable focusing mirror.

An ionic polymer metallic composite (IPMC) can perform a bending deformation under an electric field by a small bias voltage. A roughening process is necessary and typically included in the IPMC fabrication. Roughening processes bring several advantages, including better metal adhesion and actuation performance. However, the resulting large surface roughness is an obstacle for optical applications. In this paper, we coated polydimethylsiloxane to improve the surface roughness of IPMC. The improved surface roughness is around 28 nm versus tens of micrometers with an uncoated IPMC. The surface-improved IPMC achieved focusing power of 77 diopters under a 7 V bias voltage. We also found that the lifetime in atmosphere is 30 times longer than that of the nonimproved IPMC. Compared with other popular focusing techniques, such as liquid lenses or micromachined deformable mirrors, the driving voltage is at least one order of magnitude lower and the tunable range is two to three times larger. The effects of the surface-improved fabrication on reflectance, surface scattering, and actuation performance are also discussed. We demonstrate the surface-improved method to construct a patterned IPMC deformable membrane for optical applications.

Design and fabrication of a large-stroke deformable mirror using a gear-shape ionic-conductive polymer metal composite.

Conventional camera modules with image sensors manipulate the focus or zoom by moving lenses. Although motors, such as voice-coil motors, can move the lens sets precisely, large volume, high power consumption, and long moving time are critical issues for motor-type camera modules. A deformable mirror (DM) provides a good opportunity to improve these issues. The DM is a reflective type optical component which can alter the optical power to focus the lights on the two dimensional optical image sensors. It can make the camera system operate rapidly. Ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) is a promising electro-actuated polymer material that can be used in micromachining devices because of its large deformation with low actuation voltage. We developed a convenient simulation model based on Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio. We divided an ion exchange polymer, also known as Nafion(®), into two virtual layers in the simulation model: one was expansive and the other was contractive, caused by opposite constant surface forces on each surface of the elements. Therefore, the deformation for different IPMC shapes can be described more easily. A standard experiment of voltage vs. tip displacement was used to verify the proposed modeling. Finally, a gear shaped IPMC actuator was designed and tested. Optical power of the IPMC deformable mirror is experimentally demonstrated to be 17 diopters with two volts. The needed voltage was about two orders lower than conventional silicon deformable mirrors and about one order lower than the liquid lens.

An optical wavefront sensor based on a double layer microlens array.

In order to determine light aberrations, Shack-Hartmann optical wavefront sensors make use of microlens arrays (MLA) to divide the incident light into small parts and focus them onto image planes. In this paper, we present the design and fabrication of long focal length MLA with various shapes and arrangements based on a double layer structure for optical wavefront sensing applications. A longer focal length MLA could provide high sensitivity in determining the average slope across each microlens under a given wavefront, and spatial resolution of a wavefront sensor is increased by numbers of microlenses across a detector. In order to extend focal length, we used polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) above MLA on a glass substrate. Because of small refractive index difference between PDMS and MLA interface (UV-resin), the incident light is less refracted and focused in further distance. Other specific focal lengths could also be realized by modifying the refractive index difference without changing the MLA size. Thus, the wavefront sensor could be improved with better sensitivity and higher spatial resolution.

Cell parameter measurement of a twisted nematic liquid crystal device using interferometric polarimeter under normal incidence.

Five cell parameters of a twisted nematic liquid crystal device (TNLCD), namely, cell gap, pretilt angle, twisted angle, rubbing angle, and phase retardation are precisely measured by the developed amplitude-sensitive heterodyne polarimeter (ASHP) simultaneously integrated with Yeh and Gu's transfer matrix and Lien's transfer matrix. This proposed method can characterize the five cell parameters under the arrangement of a single wavelength at normal incidence. In contrast to the conventional methods on cell parameter detection either by adopting a multiple wavelength laser beam at normal incidence or by using a single wavelength laser beam under oblique incident to TNLCD, this method presents the advantage of not only having a simple setup but also the possibility to measure simultaneously five cell parameters on the characterization of TNLCD at high speed.

Thin autofocus camera module by a large-stroke micromachined deformable mirror.

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.

Two-dimensional cell parameters of twisted nematic liquid crystal with an amplitude-sensitive heterodyne ellipsometer.

To be compared with the wavelength modulation technique for measuring two-dimensional (2D) cell parameters of a twisted nematic liquid crystal (TN-LC), we propose an amplitude-sensitive heterodyne ellipsometer (ASHE) of a single wavelength that is able to characterize TN-LC in 2D quantitatively. A quarter-wave plate (QWP) is rotated continuously in this setup to modulate the polarization state of the incident laser beam to obtain the amplitude ratio of the S and P waves versus the rotation angle of the QWP. Thus the cell parameters, including the twisted angle Phi, untwisted phase retardation Gamma, rubbing direction angle alpha, and cell gap d, of a TN-LC cell are obtained simultaneously by best fitting the detected amplitude ratio with a prediction based on the transfer matrix of TN-LC cell. 2D distributions of (Phi,Gamma,alpha,d) are then obtained either by scanning the TN-LC cell or by using a CCD camera for high-speed measurement. In this experiment, the stability of the amplitude-ratio measurement of the proposed ASHE was 0.5%. The goal is to integrate the rotating elliptical wave plate with the TN-LC cell in a heterodyne ellipsometer to obtain cell parameters at amplitude sensitivity. This increases not only the sensitivity of the measurement but also the possibility of extending the 2D distribution of cell parameters in real time.

High speed interferometric ellipsometer.

A novel high speed interferometric ellipsometer (HSIE) is proposed and demonstrated. It is based on a novel differential-phase decoder which is able to convert the phase modulation into amplitude modulation in a polarized heterodyne interferometer. Not only high detection sensitivity but also fast response ability on ellipsometric parameters (EP) measurements based on amplitude-sensitive method is constructed whereas different amplitudes with respect to P and S polarized heterodyne signals in this phase to amplitude modulation conversion is discussed. The ability of HSIE was verified by testing a quarter wave plate while a real time differential-phase detection of a liquid crystal device versus applied voltage by using HSIE was demonstrated too. These results confirm that HSIE is able to characterize the optical property of specimen in terms of EP at high speed and high detection sensitivity experimentally.

Determination of retardation parameters of multiple-order wave plate using a phase-sensitive heterodyne ellipsometer.

To characterize the linear birefringence of a multiple-order wave plate (MWP), an oblique incidence is one of the methods available. Multiple reflections in the MWP are produced, and oscillations in the phase retardation measurement versus the oblique incident angle are then measured. Therefore, an antireflection coated MWP is required to avoid oscillation of the phase retardation measurement. In this study, we set up a phase-sensitive heterodyne ellipsometer to measure the phase retardations of an uncoated MWP versus the oblique incident angle, which was scanned in the x-z plane and y-z plane independently. Thus, the effect on multiple reflections by the MWP is reduced by means of subtracting the two measured phase retardations from each other. As a result, a highly sensitive and accurate measurement of retardation parameters (RPs), which includes the refractive indices of the extraordinary ray n(e) and ordinary ray n(o), is obtained by this method. On measurement, a sensitivity (n(e),n(o)) of 10(-6) was achieved by this experiment setup. At the same time, the spatial shifting of the P and S waves emerging from the MWP introduced a deviation between experimental results and the theoretical calculation.