Imaging with the liquid crystal adaptive lens

The liquid crystal adaptive lens (LCAL) is an electro-optical device whose focal length can be varied electrically. The discrete nature of the electrodes of the device introduces phase aberrations which degrade the performance of the LCAL. We introduce a novel electrode architecture, called ''conductive ladder meshing'' (CLM) and a ''stimulated annealing'' voltage dithering technique to reduce the phase aberrations. True imaging experiments with a spherical CLM LCAL were performed for a single incoming polarization under white light illumination. Experimental results revealed that the images formed were comparable to those formed by a fixed lens in terms of resolution, although, the contrast was worse. In addition to variable focal lengths, the CLM LCAL is capable of image translation orthogonal to the propagation direction.