SBIR Phase I: Tunable Lenses for Infrared Light

The broader impacts/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is in two main application areas: infrared cameras and telecommunications components. Tunable infrared lenses will enable highly capable miniaturized infrared cameras, resulting in improved systems for security, automatic navigation, and safety. In communications, tunable infrared lenses will reduce component costs by eliminating active alignment requirements, and can enable new functionality in configurable optical design. There are impacts, too, in scientific research, which will benefit from the availability of a continuously variable infrared lens for use in optical experimentation. Finally, there will be substantial economic and employment benefits stemming from successful commercialization of this technology. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop a new type of device for infrared optics and photonics: tunable lenses with focusing and beam-steering properties that can be adjusted without the use of mechanical parts. The devices are compact, low-power, robust, and inexpensive; they promise to enable a broad array of new applications in infrared imaging and communications. The tunable lenses contain two immiscible liquids with different refractive indices, and the curved interface between the two liquids forms a lensing surface. The liquid interface can be altered by an applied electric field to change the focusing properties of the lens or to tilt it in order to steer light in a desired direction. The project will develop electrowetting optics with a new set of materials optimized for use in the short-wave infrared band between 0.9 and 1.7 microns, which is used for night vision, sensing, and telecommunications.