Development of Nonmechanical Zoom Lens System using Liquid Crystal

The Liquid Crystal (LC) zoom lens system has strong advantages with respect to its size and small electric power consumption, because this lens system does not have any mechanical part. The authors take into consideration a structure of the Galilean telescopic type of the zoom lens system because it makes a total length of the lens system be smaller. Its performance is simulated. There exists a trade-off between the response time of the LC lens and its potential maximum lens power. The lens power, defined as the reciprocal of the focal length, is a very important factor of the LC lens, by which a variable range of the magnification change is determined. In this paper, the authors discussed and tested a structure of the Galilean LC lens zoom system. This structure achieves the same variable range of the magnification change by using the LC lens with a much smaller lens power. This result is quite helpful for the response time and brightness of the LC zoom lens system. Simulation results showed its potentials.