All-optical controlling of the focal intensity of a liquid crystal polymer microlens array

The current work demonstrates a liquid crystalline polymer microlens array (LCP MLA) with an all-optically tunable and multistable focal intensity through photochemical phase transition. The operational mechanism of the optical tuning is associated with the photoisomerization effect. The proposed LCP MLA device has a focusing unit based on a birefringence LCP and a tuning unit with a light responsive material to control the polarization state of the incident probe beam. The optically variable refractive indices of LCP enable a positive or negative MLA that can control the polarization of incident light to be realized.