Tunable liquid crystal lens array by encapsulation with a photo-reactive polymer for short focal length

We demonstrated an electrically tunable liquid crystal (LC) lens array with a short focal length by self-encapsulation with a polymer layer of photo-reactive mesogens (RMs). The underlying concept relies primarily on the encapsulation of the LC with a thin curvilinear polymer layer in contact with air for the reduction of the focal length. The polymer-encapsulated (PE)-LC lens array was produced on a patterned substrate by selective wetting inscription through the phase separation of the LC and the RMs. In the field-off state, the focal length of the PE-LC lens was measured to be about 3 mm which is shorter than a conventional case by a factor of three (about 9 mm). The wettability inscription by ultraviolet light enables to build up any size of the LC lens in array over large-area without using a wet-chemical etching process for flexible optoelectronic and photonic applications.