Continuously focus tunable 2D/3D switchable cylindrical liquid crystal microlens arrays for autostereoscopic displays

Cylindrical microlens arrays are important optical elements for autostereoscopic display. Conventional fixed focal length cylindrical microlens arrays do not allow switching between 2D mode and 3D mode when constructing a 3D viewing zone. In contrast, cylindrical liquid crystal microlens arrays with zoom characteristics allow switching between 2D and 3D states, as well as adjusting the width of the sub-viewing zone. Therefore, based on the quantitative analysis of the geometrical structure of the viewing zone in different states, this paper proposes a continuous zoom type cylindrical liquid crystal microlens array structure, which is a liquid crystal cell composed of an array of plano-concave glass substrates and planar glass substrates. Theory and experiments show that it is close to a favorable parabolic phase profile at different driving voltages, and at the same time, it can realize a zoom range of 1.6mm-36 mm at a smaller driving voltage. The wide zoom range and excellent zoom effect make this structure particularly suitable for autostereoscopic display, and this characteristic can achieve the effect of switching between 2D and 3D by adjusting the shape of the central viewing zone.