PDMS liquid lens with corrected aberrations

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) liquid lens has the advantages of large aperture and high power, but its aberration is serious. In this paper, a PDMS membrane liquid lens for correcting aberrations is proposed. The proposed lens is composed of a PDMS membrane, liquid material, and compensation substrate. Based on the paraboloid membrane model, an optical model of the liquid lens is established. The high refractive index liquid (1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate) and a compensatory substrate are used for correcting the aberration and improving the optical power. The proposed liquid lens is fabricated and the experimental results show that the effective optical aperture is 25 mm, the power range is -5 D ~ +6 D, and the transmittance in the visible band is more than 90%. Compared with the traditional lenses, the proposed liquid lens can improve the image quality, and the resolution is 15 lp/mm at +5D power. The proposed liquid lens has potential applications in large aperture optical imaging systems, such as telescopes, AR, VR, etc.