Optical properties of a polymer-stabilized liquid crystal microlens

We propose and demonstrate, for the first time, the fabrication of a polymer-stabilized gradient-index-type microlens using a liquid crystalline composite system containing a UV curable liquid crystal (LC) that can be photopolymerized by UV irradiation. The gradient-distribution state of nematic LC molecules in the LC microlens can be stabilized by the polymer network formed by the UV curable LC, and the focusing property of the microlens is maintained without applying voltage. Furthermore, the optical property of the microlens can be varied by applying voltage after photopolymerization. As a result, it is confirmed that the polymer-stabilized LC microlens overcomes the drawback of conventional LC microlenses.