Concave Paraboloid Liquid Crystal Microlenses with Integrated Pancharatnam–Berry Phase

Aspheric lenses reduce aberration and provide sharper images with improved spot size compared to spherical lenses. Here, we demonstrate that applying shear flow can produce plano-concave liquid crystal lens arrays with paraboloid aspheric profiles. The focal length of individual lenses, with a  0.2mm aperture can be tuned by changing the chiral dopant concentrations. The focal length of these microles arrays are sensitive to the polarization state of the incoming light [1,2]. The microlenses are stabilized by photopolymerizing with 6 wt.% of reactive monomer added to the liquid crystal mixture. We discuss optical properties and the potential tunability of these polymer-stabilized lenses in magnetic and electric fields [3].