Improvement of performance of liquid crystal microlens with polymer surface modification

An electrically controllable liquid crystal (LC) microlens with polymer crater, which is simply prepared by droplet evaporation, has been previously proposed as a focusing device possessing excellent characteristics in optical performance, especially for the capability of tunable focal lengths. As the alignment layer on the crater surface cannot be effectively rubbed, non-uniformly symmetrical electric fields in the LC lenses usually induce disclination lines during operation. In this paper, a polymer surface stabilization technique is applied to successfully prevent disclination lines and greatly improve the performance of the LC microlens with the polymer crater.