Voltage-programmable liquid optical interface

被引:77
作者
Brown, C. V. [1 ]
Wells, G. G. [1 ]
Newton, M. I. [1 ]
McHale, G. [1 ]
机构
[1] Nottingham Trent Univ, Sch Sci & Technol, Nottingham NG11 8NS, England
基金
英国工程与自然科学研究理事会;
关键词
INSTABILITY; FILMS; LENS;
D O I
10.1038/NPHOTON.2009.99
中图分类号
O43 [光学];
学科分类号
070207 ; 0803 ;
摘要
Recently, there has been intense interest in photonic devices based on microfluidics, including displays(1,2) and refractive tunable microlenses and optical beamsteerers(3-5) that work using the principle of electrowetting(6,7). Here, we report a novel approach to optical devices in which static wrinkles are produced at the surface of a thin film of oil as a result of dielectrophoretic forces(8-10). We have demonstrated this voltage-programmable surface wrinkling effect in periodic devices with pitch lengths of between 20 and 240 mu m and with response times of less than 40 mu s. By a careful choice of oils, it is possible to optimize either for high-amplitude sinusoidal wrinkles at micrometre-scale pitches or more complex non-sinusoidal profiles with higher Fourier components at longer pitches. This opens up the possibility of developing rapidly responsive voltage-programmable, polarization-insensitive transmission and reflection diffraction devices and arbitrary surface profile optical devices.
引用
收藏
页码:403 / 405
页数:3
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