Fabrication, characterization and modeling of tunable elastomer lenses

Abstract

This paper discusses developments in our work on novel tunable lenses made from elastomer slabs. A brief review of previous results is presented first before discussing a bottle-cap design to compress a slab of elastomer producing a tunable focal-length lens. Measurements of the resulting focal lengths were modeled via a constant volume approximation approach. Satisfactory agreement between experimental and theoretical values was achieved although refinements in the theory and experiments have to be done. The potential of the tunable lens for device application is starting to unfold.