Array of reconfigurable diffractive lens on flexible substrate (Conference Presentation)

We designed and fabricated microscale lens arrays on a flexible substrate. The flexibility of the substrate allows for wide field of view imaging as well as optical focus scanning. Fresnel zone plates (FZPs), which are compact and lightweight, are used as microlenses for focusing. The arrangement of FZPs on flexible substrate can be reconfigured to maximize FOV. Tunable focus can also be achieved by stretching the FZPs laterally. In addition, the lightweight microlenses can be actuated to scan the focus axially. The lenses have a wide range of applications including displays, contact lenses, microscopy, surveillance and optical communications. The diameter of the microlenses ranges from 100 to 500 µm. The thickness of the lenses is 100 µm. Unlike refractive and reflective lenses, the focusing capability of FZPs is achieved via diffraction. FZPs consist of alternating black and white zones to modulate the phase of the incident light. The light diffracted from edge of the regions to achieve multiple focus. Most of the energy is diffracted into the first focus. The dark regions are made of silicon nanowires which are highly absorbent for visible spectrum. Standard processes, including wet and dry etching, are used to etch silicon substrate and form nanowires. The white zones are designed for both reflective and transmissive lenses. The lenses are implemented on PDMS as flexible substrate. The silicon nanowires are embedded into PDMS so that the shape of individual lens as well as the arrangement of the array can be reconfigured. In this article, we report our design, fabrication process and experiments.