Light field imaging based on electrically tunable nematic liquid crystal micro lens array

A light field imaging system based on electrically tunable nematic liquid crystal (LC)-micro lens array (MLA) is proposed. In this system, a LC-MLA is utilized to replace the conventional glass MLA. The LC-MLA has an advantage of electrically controlled without any mechanical movements. This feature could extend depth of field (DOF) of the LCMLA. In the measurements, the relationship between the external applied voltage and the focal length of the LC-MLA is discussed. The point spread function (PSF) of the LC-MLA is given. An interesting experiment for measuring the direction of the incident light is presented. Those measurements show that the proposed LC-MLA has greatly potential in light field imaging system.