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Reversible photoalignment of liquid crystals: a path toward the creation of rewritable lenses

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Publication Date
2020-04-01
Authors
Canga, Ignacio
Crespo Vázquez, Daniel
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Nature Publishing Group
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Abstract
In this work, we describe a new reversible photoalignment effect for the director in nematic liquid crystals that provides an approach for the creation of lenses whose optical power can be recorded and erased. The possibility of creating a rewritable lens has very important practical implications, for example, in the ophthalmic lens industry. A rewritable ophthalmic lens could be a convenient solution for patients whose compensation needs change over time due to age-related physiological changes, such as the onset and progression of presbyopia. Using rewritable lenses, small lens power corrections could be implemented through a rewriting procedure on the mounted lens without resurfacing or manufacturing and mounting a new lens. More generally, this new effect multiple potential applications in the creation of rewritable optical systems, such as reconfigurable optical networks, index-tunable antireflective coatings and optically rewritable phase gratings.
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© The Author(s) 2020. The authors want to acknowledge the support of Carolina Gago, Head of Indizen Optical Technologies SL (Spain), and Tom Balch and David Rips, heads of Younger Optics (USA). Te authors declare the following Financial competing interests: DC is founder and CEO of IOT and declares a stake in the company shares. JAQ and JAF are founders of IOT, and currently, they are employees at IOT, serving as R+D coheads. IC works as an employee at IOT, serving as a research specialist. Te research presented in this paper is related to the IOT patent US9726907B2 “Rewritable lens and method of manufacturing” already cited in the bibliography and a USPTO pending patent US20190258080A1 “Creating Rewritable Lenses” Te author(s) declare no Non-financial competing interests.
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