Electrowetting-based optics

Abstract

Electrowetting is electrostatic manipulation of liquids. It can be used to displace and deform volumes of polar liquids. A very promising application area is optics. The surface of a volume of liquid can be used as a tunable lens and displacement of the liquid can change the refraction, diffraction or transmission of light when passing through the liquid. In this paper we describe a selection of various tunable optical components that make use of electrowetting, ranging from refractive and diffractive lenses to diaphragms and displays.