Multiplexed lenses written onto a liquid crystal display to increase depth of focus

J. CAMPOS; O. LÓPEZ CORONADO; CLAUDIO IEMMI; J. ESCALERA; R. GIMENO; M. YZUEL

San Diego, USA

Congreso; Optical Information Systems IV; 2006

In this work we propose different types of combination of several diffractive lenses written onto a single programmable liquid crystal display (LCD) in order to increase the depth of focus (DOF) of the imaging system. Each lens is designed in such a way that lenses with consecutive focal lengths provide amplitude distributions along the axis that overlap. The lenses are spatially multiplexed onto the LCD following different schemes: by sectors, by rings and randomly. We compare experimentally the Point Spread Function (PSF) in transversal planes along the optical axis with a single lens and with the designed multiplexed lenses. The intensity profiles are also compared. The random multiplexing is the combination technique that brings the best results in terms of DOF.