An electrically tunable optical zoom system with separated focusing and zooming functions

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrated an electrically tunable optical zoom system with separated focusing and zooming functions. The optical mechanism is discussed. The focusing distance and magnification of the image can be controlled separately by focusing lenses and zooming lenses. As a result, the zoom ratio is independent of objective distance and only depends on the tunable range of the lens power of the active-optical elements. This study helps designing many applications with an optical zoom function, such as cell phones, holographic projectors, pico projectors and endoscopes.