Harnessing Mechanical Deformation to Reduce Spherical Aberration in Soft Lenses

Mechanical deformation has recently emerged as a promising platform to realize optical devices with tunable response. While most studies to date have focused on the tuning of the focal length, here we use a combination of experiments and analyses to show that an applied tensile strain can also largely reduce spherical aberration. We first demonstrate the concept for a cylindrical elastomeric lens and then show that it is robust and valid over a range of geometries and material properties. As such, our study suggests that large mechanical deformations may provide a simple route to achieve the complex profiles required to minimize aberration and realize lenses capable of producing images of superior quality.