Influence of Elastic Constants on the Optical Properties of Liquid Crystal Microlenses

Use of liquid crystal (LC) microlenses prepared from various types of LC materials is demonstrated for clarification of the influence of material parameters on the optical performance experimentally. Spherical aberration in the LC microlens is reduced by optimization of structure parameters, and the correlation between astigmatic aberration and elastic constants is investigated. The astigmatic aberration in the LC microlens strongly depends on the elastic constants and is explained by use of molecular orientation models calculated by a finite element method.