Low aberration and fast response liquid crystal lens with optically compensated bend structures

A hole-patterned electrode (HPE) liquid crystal (LC) lens with positive (0 D – 0.7 D) and negative focal lengths (0 D - −1.1 D) is demonstrated. The lens uses an optically compensated bend (OCB) cell filled with dual-frequency LC materials and alignment films with an intermediate pretilt angle. Better reduction in tilt and coma aberration can be achieved using this simple one-layer structure with its symmetric LC orientation in an OCB cell than can be obtained with a complicated two-layer HPE LC lens. The use of dual-frequency switching together with the reduction of the backflow effect in the OCB cell also improves the response by about 7 times compared with the conventional HPE LC lens.