阅读说明：本技术 一种线墙式多电极控制电润湿驱动液体透镜 (Line wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting driving liquid lens ) 是由 陈浩南 其他发明人请求不公开姓名 于 2019-04-22 设计创作，主要内容包括：一种线墙式多电极控制电润湿驱动液体透镜,其基本结构在于包括透镜载体(1)、介质电润湿线墙(2)及透明的上、下盖片；透镜载体(1)主体为通孔状结构,介质电润湿线(3)以排绕方式在通孔内壁与外壁之间纵向穿绕成线匝状,线墙沿纵向分成n个区域块,各区域块线墙间电绝缘；所述的介质电润湿线(3)由导电线芯(5)外裹绝缘层(6)形成；通孔内存储具有不同的折射率、互不相溶的透明导电液体和绝缘液体作为透镜材料,通过与介质电润湿线墙(2)发生的电润湿效应,改变弯曲界面形状以实现光学变焦；不同线墙分别施加不同的控制电压后,可使弯曲界面发生形变,也可使界面沿轴向偏转,可构造任意光瞳形状的光可变焦透镜或可调光学器件。(A line wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting drive liquid lens is basically structurally characterized by comprising a lens carrier (1), a dielectric electrowetting line wall (2) and transparent upper and lower cover plates; the lens carrier (1) main body is a through hole-shaped structure, the dielectric electrowetting wire (3) is longitudinally wound into a wire coil shape between the inner wall and the outer wall of the through hole in a winding and displacement mode, the wire wall is divided into n area blocks along the longitudinal direction, and the wire walls of all the area blocks are electrically insulated; the dielectric electrowetting wire (3) is formed by wrapping an insulating layer (6) outside a conductive wire core (5); transparent conductive liquid and insulating liquid which have different refractive indexes and are not mutually soluble are stored in the through holes to serve as lens materials, and the shape of a curved interface is changed through an electrowetting effect generated between the lens materials and the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) so as to realize optical zooming; after different control voltages are applied to different line walls, the curved interface can be deformed, the interface can also be deflected along the axial direction, and a light variable focus lens or an adjustable optical device with any pupil shape can be constructed.)

1. A line wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting drive liquid lens is characterized in that the line wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting drive liquid lens comprises a lens carrier (1), a dielectric electrowetting line wall (2) and transparent upper and lower cover plates; the lens carrier (1) is of a through hole-shaped structure, the dielectric electrowetting wire (3) is longitudinally wound into a wire coil shape between the inner wall and the outer wall of the through hole in a winding manner, a dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is formed on the inner wall of the through hole, the wire wall is divided into n area blocks along the longitudinal direction, and the wire walls of the area blocks are electrically insulated; the dielectric electrowetting wire (3) is formed by wrapping an insulating layer (6) outside a conductive wire core (5); the through hole is sealed into a lens cavity (4) by transparent upper and lower cover plates, transparent conductive liquid and insulating liquid which have different refractive indexes and are not mutually soluble are stored in the lens cavity to serve as lens materials, a bent interface between the liquids plays a role of a lens, and the shape of the bent interface is changed through an electrowetting effect generated between the liquid and the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) so as to realize optical zooming; after different control voltages are applied to n wire walls of the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2), the bending interface can be deformed, and the interface can also be deflected along the axial direction, so that the three-dimensional movement of the focus of the lens is controlled.

2. The line-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting driven liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein the dielectric electrowetting line (3) has an outer insulating layer (6) coated with a hydrophobic layer (7); if the hydrophobic layer (7) has insulation, the insulating layer (6) and the hydrophobic layer (7) can be combined into a whole; if the dielectric electrowetting line (3) is not coated with the hydrophobic layer (7), the contact surface of the dielectric electrowetting line wall (2) and the liquid can be coated with the hydrophobic layer.

3. The wire-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting driving liquid lens of claim 1, wherein the surfaces of the upper and lower cover sheets, which are in contact with the conductive liquid, are provided with transparent conductive layers and led out as a common electrode I; or other conductive materials are arranged to be in contact with the conductive liquid and are led out as a common electrode I; or when the lens carrier (1) is made of conductive materials, the lens carrier is directly contacted with the conductive liquid to be led out as a common electrode I.

4. The wire-wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting driving liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein taps of the dielectric electrowetting wire (3) can be connected with each other to lead out another control electrode II.

5. The wire-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting driven liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein the bending plane of the controllable liquid becomes a plane with controllable deflection direction after a specific control voltage is applied to each of n wire walls of the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2).

6. The wire-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting driven liquid lens of claim 1, wherein the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is configured as a multi-layer wire-row structure, and each layer is individually voltage-controllable.

7. The wire-wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting driving liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is formed by winding n different dielectric electrowetting wires side by side along the longitudinal direction of the inner wall, and each wire can be independently applied with a control voltage signal.

8. The wire-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting-driven liquid lens of claim 1, wherein the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is formed by disposing one or more layers of wire walls with a thick wire core, and then disposing thin wires between gaps of the wire walls to improve filling rate and flatness.

9. An electrowetting-driven liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is formed by disposing one or more layers of wire walls on a thin wire core, and then sparsely disposing one layer of thick wire on the side of the wire wall contacting the liquid by using the thick wire to increase the contact area between the liquid and the wire wall.

10. The wire-wall type multi-electrode controlled electrowetting-driven liquid lens according to claim 1, wherein when the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) has a certain hardness, the lens body (1) is left out and the dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) is used as the lens body.

Technical Field

The invention relates to a novel line-wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting driving liquid lens structure and a working principle thereof, belonging to the technical field of photoelectric imaging, photoelectric sensing and optical information processing devices.

Background

The conventional zoom system realizes zooming by moving the position of a lens relative to a photoelectric sensor, is easily damaged by external force to cause failure, and has long response time. The liquid zoom lens system does not need any mechanical transmission device, and the system is not easy to be damaged by external force. The liquid zoom lens realizes zooming by changing the shape of liquid, has the response time of only a few milliseconds, can realize the adjustment of a focal length without mechanical movement, has the advantages of compact structure, flexible control, low manufacturing cost, no mechanical abrasion, easy integration and the like, and can overcome the difficulty of the traditional optical system.

The liquid zoom lens models developed internationally at present mainly include the following:

(a) the liquid-filled zoom lens changes the curvature of the film on the top surface of the cavity by changing the volume of liquid injected into the cavity, thereby achieving the purpose of adjusting the focal length. Simple structure and low cost but this lens requires an additional pump to provide pressure to change the curvature of the liquid top film, which would cause catastrophic failure of the elastic film if the pressure is too high.

(b) A liquid crystal based micro zoom lens which places the lens in a liquid crystal atmosphere and adjusts the refractive index of the liquid crystal by varying the applied voltage to achieve control of the focal length of the lens. Such a lens is easy to realize an array, but causes a large optical distortion due to non-uniformity of liquid crystal in an electric field.

(c) Fluid zoom lenses based on dielectric Electrowetting (EWOD) use an applied voltage to adjust the curvature of the liquid surface and thereby change the focal length of the lens. The lens is small in structure and large in focal length adjusting range. The basic working principle of fluid zoom lenses based on dielectric Electrowetting (EWOD) released by Philips corporation is as follows: the lens material consists of two immiscible liquids with different refractive indices, one being a conductive aqueous solution (high refractive index) and the other being an electrically non-conductive oil (low refractive index), which are introduced into a short cylinder that is transparent on both the top and bottom. The side wall of the cylinder is subjected to insulating hydrophobic treatment, so that the interface of the two liquids can form a stable curved surface and play a role of a lens. When an electric field which is orthogonal to the hydrophobic processing surface is applied, the interfacial tension between the conductive aqueous solution and the side wall is reduced due to the electrowetting effect, so that the shape of the interface of the two liquids is changed, and finally the focal length of the lens is changed. The liquid lens structure of variaptic corporation is similar. However, the materials adopted by the zoom lens schemes are expensive, the device is complex, and the product yield is low.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a line-wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting-driven liquid lens structure, which simplifies the manufacturing process, improves the production process and solves the problem of the production cost of the liquid lens.

The invention provides a line wall type multi-electrode control electrowetting drive liquid lens structure, which is shown in figure 1 and comprises a lens carrier 1, a dielectric electrowetting line wall 2, a transparent upper cover plate and a transparent lower cover plate; the main body part of the lens carrier 1 is of a through hole-shaped structure, the dielectric electrowetting wires 3 are wound between the inner wall and the outer wall of the through hole in a winding manner to form one or more layers of wire turns (which is somewhat similar to the winding method of the wire turns of a toroidal transformer), the densely arranged dielectric electrowetting wires 3 form a dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 at the wall of the through hole cavity, wherein the core component dielectric electrowetting wires 3 are formed by wrapping an insulating layer 6 outside a conductive wire core 5, the insulating layer 6 can be coated with a hydrophobic layer 7 to improve the hydrophobicity of the outer surface of the wire core, and sometimes the insulating layer and the hydrophobic layer are combined into a whole, which is shown in fig. 2; therefore, the dielectric electrowetting wall comprises two important elements of the electrowetting effect, namely a conductive layer and an insulating hydrophobic layer, and the hydrophobic layer can be coated and arranged after the wall is formed; the inner space of the through hole is sealed into a lens cavity 4 by transparent upper and lower cover plates, and two or more transparent conductive liquids and insulating liquids which have different refractive indexes and are not mutually soluble are stored in the cavity to be used as lens materials.

If a transparent conducting layer is arranged on the surface of one of the upper cover plate and the lower cover plate, which is contacted with the conducting liquid, the transparent conducting layer can be taken as an electrode I to be led out; when the surface of the cover plate is not provided with the transparent conducting layer, other conducting materials are arranged to be in contact with the conducting liquid and taken out as the electrode I, and particularly when the material of the lens carrier 1 is a conducting medium, the material can be directly in contact with the conducting liquid and also taken out as the electrode I; the taps of the medium electrowetting wire 3 are combined to be led out of the other electrode II.

The zooming driving force of the variable liquid lens is from an electrowetting effect generated under the action of voltage after the medium electrowetting wire 3 is contacted with the conductive liquid, and is independent of the lens carrier 1, so the lens carrier 1 can be made of an electric conductor or an electric nonconductor; the shape is not limited, and the shape used as the lens is preferably a through hole circular tube shape or a through hole conical shape as shown in fig. 3, and when the lens is used as other adjustable optical components, other arbitrary shapes can be selected.

The curved interface formed by the contact of the conductive liquid and the insulating liquid plays a lens role, and the interfacial tension of the conductive liquid and the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 is reduced under the action of voltage due to the electrowetting effect, so that the shape of the curved interface is changed to realize the tuning of the optical focal length.

Unlike conventional variable lens and liquid lens devices, the lens of the present invention can be provided with dielectric wetting walls by regions, each of which can be independently applied with a control voltage. As shown in FIG. 4, the inner wall of the carrier 1 is divided into n regions in the longitudinal direction, each region is penetrated and wound by different dielectric electrowetting coil segments, all the coil segments are electrically insulated to form n dielectric wetting walls, the taps of each coil segment are combined to lead out an electrode II to form an electrode group (II _1, II _2, … II _ n), and each electrode can be respectively applied with different control voltages to enable the liquid contact surface to deflect along the axial direction while deforming, thereby controlling the three-dimensional movement of the lens focus and also controlling the liquid bending surface to become a plane capable of controlling the deflection direction.

The dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 can be formed by winding n different dielectric electrowetting wires side by side along the inner wall in the longitudinal direction, and each wire can independently apply a control voltage signal, as shown in fig. 5.

Similarly, the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 can also be provided as a multi-layer wire row structure, each layer being individually voltage controllable, see fig. 6.

The dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 can be arranged by arranging one or more layers of wire walls by a thick wire core, and then arranging thin wires between gaps of the wire walls to improve the filling rate and the flatness, see fig. 7.

The dielectric electrowetting wire wall (2) can be arranged by arranging one or more layers of wire walls by the thin wire core, and then sparsely arranging one layer of thick wire on the side of the wire walls contacting with the liquid by using the thick wire so as to increase the contact area of the liquid and the wire walls, and see fig. 8.

When the dielectric electrowetting line wall has certain hardness, the lens matrix 1 can be omitted, the lens main body is constructed by only using the dielectric electrowetting line wall, and the outer side of the wall is coated with glue and the like to prevent the wall from leaking liquid; or using a weaving technique, such as weaving dielectric electrowetting wires into the lens cavity body while acting as dielectric electrowetting wire walls, see fig. 9.

In addition, the liquid stored in the lens chamber 3 can be three or more liquids, based on the lamination scheme of the present invention.

Has the advantages that: from the above description, the present invention has the following features:

the wire-wall type multi-electrode electrowetting-controlled driving liquid lens structure is designed by combining a wire turn threading technology with a modern optical technology, and has important economic and technical values. The device designed by the invention has the advantages of simple structure, easy manufacture, low cost and the like.

The innovation point is that:

1) a dielectric electrowetting line is invented and then applied to the construction of a liquid variable focus lens like product and provides electrowetting effect actuation. The core component of the traditional liquid zoom lens, namely the manufacture of the insulating dielectric layer providing the electrowetting effect, is converted into the wire core processing with mature production process, the production process is greatly simplified, and the yield is improved. The situation that the liquid zoom lens is monopolized by foreign technologies is broken at a stroke, and the localization of the liquid zoom lens is accelerated.

2) Because the variable liquid lens of the invention zooms the driving force comes from the electrowetting effect that takes place between conductive liquid and the dielectric electrowetting line, have nothing to do with lens carrier material, shape, so can construct the light variable focus lens of any pupil shape, such as the triangular pupil, quadrangle or even polygonal pupil, have broken the restriction of the round pupil of the variable focus lens; the adjustable optical devices with various special-shaped cavity structures can be designed and manufactured, and a new place can be brought to the design and the manufacture of the adjustable optical devices.

3) The simple and easy, colorful control electrode setting brings infinite possibility for the control and application of the adjustable optical device.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a line-wall electrowetting-driven liquid lens, in which a 1-lens carrier, a 2-dielectric electrowetting line wall, a 3-lens cavity, a 4-dielectric electrowetting line, and 8-electrode taps are provided, the line wall is divided into 3 regions, 3 control electrode taps are provided, and different voltages are respectively applied to independently change the interfacial tension of each dielectric electrowetting wall;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a dielectric electrowetting line structure having a 5-conductive core, a 6-insulating layer, and a 7-hydrophobic layer;

FIG. 3A is a schematic view of a through hole with a conical structure, in which the flat cables are obliquely arranged;

FIG. 3B is a schematic view of a through hole having a biconical structure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of four-wall driving of an electrowetting liquid lens, in which a common electrode is a conductive liquid pin, taps 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, and 4-4 are used as 4 control electrodes, and appropriate voltages are respectively applied to independently change the interfacial tension of 4 surfaces of a dielectric electrowetting wall, so that a double-liquid contact surface can be transformed into a plane, an inclined plane, and the like, and the direction of light can also be changed in a controllable manner, so that a focus moves at a certain angle;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an electrowetting wire-wall spaced wire array;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a multi-layer wire row structure of an electrowetting wire wall;

FIG. 7 is a schematic view of an electrowetting wire wall multi-layer multi-core radial cable;

FIG. 8 is a second schematic view of an electrowetting wire wall multi-layer multi-core radial cable;

FIG. 9 is a schematic view of a mesh electrowetting wire wall integrated with a lens carrier;

figure 10 is a schematic view of the application of electrowetting walls to a lens carrier using a transfer method.

Detailed Description

The embodiment of the application provides a line wall type winding electrowetting driving liquid lens which can be applied to a lens system containing optical zooming requirements. The liquid lens device can be applied to optical systems with imaging functions, such as microscopes, telescopes, artificial biological eyes and the like; the present invention may also be applied to apparatuses having an image capturing function, such as a mobile phone lens, a camera, a CCD lens, etc., and the present application is not limited to the application scenario of the lens device, and the above description is only an example.

Specifically, the liquid lens may include a through-hole lens carrier 1, a dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 formed by a dielectric electrowetting wire 3 passing through the through-hole lens carrier, and upper and lower cover plates for encapsulating transparent liquid; the dielectric electrowetting wire 3 is formed by wrapping an insulating layer 6 outside a conductive wire core 5, and a hydrophobic layer 7 can be coated outside the dielectric electrowetting wire if necessary; the dielectric electrowetting wire 3 is wound into a wire coil shape between the inner wall and the outer wall of the through hole in a row winding mode, and a dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 is formed at the wall of the through hole; the inside of the through hole sealed by the transparent upper cover plate and the transparent lower cover plate is used as a lens cavity 4, two or more conductive liquids and insulating liquids are stored in the lens cavity as lens materials, the lens cavity has the characteristics of different refractive indexes and mutual insolubility, contact curved surfaces of the conductive liquids and the insulating liquids play a lens role, voltage is applied between the electrode I and the electrode II, and the conductive liquids and the dielectric electrowetting linear wall 2 generate an electrowetting effect to reduce the surface tension of the liquid, so that the shape of a curved interface of the liquid is changed, and optical zooming is realized.

The zooming driving force of the variable liquid lens is from the electrowetting effect generated between the dielectric electrowetting wire 4 and the conductive liquid and is independent of the lens carrier 1, so the lens carrier 1 can be made of an electric conductor or a non-electric conductor; the shape is not limited, and the shape of the lens is preferably a through hole circular tube shape or a double cone shape as shown in fig. 3A or fig. 3B; when the adjustable optical component is used as other adjustable optical components, other arbitrary shapes can be selected.

Regarding the arrangement of the electrodes, there are divided into a common electrode and a control electrode.

The common electrode arrangement is described below in three cases.

In the first scheme, at least one of the upper cover plate and the lower cover plate is provided with a transparent conducting layer on the surface, and the surface of the transparent conducting layer in contact with the conducting liquid is fully contacted and is led out as a common electrode I.

And in the second scheme, in order to reduce the reflection loss of the upper cover plate and the lower cover plate to the light as much as possible, the surfaces of the upper cover plate and the lower cover plate are not provided with transparent conducting layers, and at the moment, other conducting materials can be arranged between the conducting liquid and the sealing cover plate to be in contact with the conducting liquid and be led out as a common electrode I.

And in the third scheme, when the lens carrier 1 is made of a conductive material, the conductive liquid is directly contacted with the lens carrier and is led out as a common electrode I.

The control electrode can be arranged in various colors, for example, the following six conditions.

In the first scheme, when a dielectric electrowetting wire 3 is used to penetrate through the lens matrix 1 to form the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2, the control electrode is led out from either one of two taps of the dielectric electrowetting wire 3 or the two taps are combined into the other electrode II.

In the second scheme, as shown in fig. 4, a dielectric electrowetting wire 3 is used to thread the lens precursor 1 in multiple sections, at this time, the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 is divided into n independent units, for example, walls 4_1, 4_2, 4_3, …, different control voltages are applied to the electrode taps, each unit can independently generate electrowetting, and the control electrodes can be named as II _1, II _2, … II _ n. In this case, the same control voltage is applied to each control electrode, so that the curved interface of the liquid lens is a spherical surface, and the zooming control effect is the same as that of the first solution; when different control voltages are applied to the control electrodes, the bending interface of the liquid lens can deflect, the optical axis of the lens can deflect at a certain angle, and when the lens system shakes, the focus position can be changed by adaptively adjusting the control voltages, so that the phenomenon of poor quality of an imaging image brought by shaking can be improved. In addition, the liquid contact surface can be used as an expansion, for example, the liquid contact surface can be used as a cascade, and the liquid contact surface can be reformed into an aspheric surface application.

Third, as shown in fig. 5, the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 may be formed by winding n different dielectric electrowetting wires side by side longitudinally along the inner wall, for example, 5_1, 5_2, 5_3, and …, each wire core periodically appears on the dielectric electrowetting wire wall, and each wire core may independently apply a control voltage signal to meet the need of periodically controlling the electrodes in some cases.

In a fourth aspect, as shown in fig. 6, the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 may also be configured as a multi-layer wire row structure, such as 6_1, 6_2, …, and each layer may be individually voltage controlled.

In the fifth embodiment, as shown in fig. 7, the dielectric electrowetting walls 2 may be formed by disposing one or more layers of walls 7_1 on a thick core, and then disposing thin lines 7_2 between the gaps of the walls to improve the filling rate and the flatness.

Sixth, as shown in fig. 8, the dielectric electrowetting wire wall 2 may be configured by disposing one or more layers of wire walls 8_1 from a thin wire core, and then sparsely disposing one or more layers of thick wires 8_2 on the side of the wire walls contacting the liquid by using the thick wires to increase the contact area between the liquid and the wire walls.

The liquid stored in the lens cavity 3 can be three or more liquids.