Optofluidic Zoom System Using Liquid Optical Path Switchers

For the existent imaging devices, zooming is realized by varying either the distance or the curvature of the lenses. Therefore, the zoom system is either bulky or with a limited zoom range. To further minimize the structure and increase the zoom range, we propose an optofluidic zoom system using liquid optical path switchers. The liquid optical path switcher can be switched between liquid phase and air phase, which varies the refractive index of the optical path. Thus, for the system, zooming is realized by varying both curvature and refractive index, whose principle is quite different from the existent methods. We fabricate an optofluidic zoom system using liquid optical path switchers. The experiment results show that the proposed optofluidic zoom system can achieve a large zoom range from ~45 to ~70 mm. The system is very compact, and the light efficiency is high. The proposed system increases the zoom range greatly and has potential to be applied in cameras, endoscopes, microscopes, and so on.