Ionic liquid advance over saline-based lenses
Ionic liquids are the key to observing improved performance and wider temperature ranges for variable focus lenses over conventional saline alternatives, report scientists in China.
Electrowetting-based variable focus liquid lenses (EVFLL) have been used in mobile phones, barcode readers and other optical equipment, in which the conductive liquid inside the lenses is currently limited to saline. In applications such as these, saline can only work in a narrow temperature range as it may evaporate or freeze in extreme temperatures. The lenses also need to operate in a wide spectral range, but again saline is restrictive here as it becomes opaque in the near infrared region – not ideal for optical devices… Read the rest of the article here…
Or for the original paper read here: Xiaodong Hu, Shiguo Zhang, Chao Qu, Qinghua Zhang, Liujin Lu, Xiangyuan Ma, Xiaoping Zhang and Youquan Deng, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05585B
