{"title":"Dielectric-elastomer-driven long-wave infrared Alvarez lenses for continuous zooming imaging","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.infrared.2024.105614","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the concept of SWaP-C (size, weight, power, and cost), a light, small, low-cost, and high-performance uncooled infrared optical zooming imaging system is pursued. However, the traditional mechanical optical zooming method makes it difficult to meet those requirements. In this paper, a compact uncooled long-wave infrared continuous zooming imaging system using the Alvarez lens actuated by dielectric elastomer is proposed. The infrared zoom imaging system mainly consists of two pairs of infrared Alvarez lenses, an adjustable optical stop, focusing lenses, and an infrared detector. The first pair of infrared Alvarez lenses serves as the zoom group and the second pair serves as the compensation group. The infrared Alvarez lenses are fabricated by five-axis diamond turning and milling technology. The experiment results show that when the dielectric elastomer can provide a lateral displacement of 1.44 mm to the first pair of infrared Alvarez lenses and a lateral displacement of 1.03 mm to the second pair of infrared Alvarez lenses. The infrared continuous zooming imaging system covers the long-wave band of 8 ∼ 12 µm. The zoom ratio can be changed from 5 × to 15 × and the F-number is 2.0. The total optical length of the proposed system is less than 80 mm. The resolution of the infrared detector is 640 × 512 with a pixel spacing of 17 µm. The dynamic response time testing revealed that the rise and fall times are 132 ms and 92 ms, respectively. The proposed long-wave infrared continuous zooming imaging system can be used in miniaturized devices such as UAV equipment and thermal imaging cameras in the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13549,"journal":{"name":"Infrared Physics & Technology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Infrared Physics & Technology","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1350449524004985","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"INSTRUMENTS & INSTRUMENTATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With the concept of SWaP-C (size, weight, power, and cost), a light, small, low-cost, and high-performance uncooled infrared optical zooming imaging system is pursued. However, the traditional mechanical optical zooming method makes it difficult to meet those requirements. In this paper, a compact uncooled long-wave infrared continuous zooming imaging system using the Alvarez lens actuated by dielectric elastomer is proposed. The infrared zoom imaging system mainly consists of two pairs of infrared Alvarez lenses, an adjustable optical stop, focusing lenses, and an infrared detector. The first pair of infrared Alvarez lenses serves as the zoom group and the second pair serves as the compensation group. The infrared Alvarez lenses are fabricated by five-axis diamond turning and milling technology. The experiment results show that when the dielectric elastomer can provide a lateral displacement of 1.44 mm to the first pair of infrared Alvarez lenses and a lateral displacement of 1.03 mm to the second pair of infrared Alvarez lenses. The infrared continuous zooming imaging system covers the long-wave band of 8 ∼ 12 µm. The zoom ratio can be changed from 5 × to 15 × and the F-number is 2.0. The total optical length of the proposed system is less than 80 mm. The resolution of the infrared detector is 640 × 512 with a pixel spacing of 17 µm. The dynamic response time testing revealed that the rise and fall times are 132 ms and 92 ms, respectively. The proposed long-wave infrared continuous zooming imaging system can be used in miniaturized devices such as UAV equipment and thermal imaging cameras in the future.
期刊介绍:
The Journal covers the entire field of infrared physics and technology: theory, experiment, application, devices and instrumentation. Infrared'' is defined as covering the near, mid and far infrared (terahertz) regions from 0.75um (750nm) to 1mm (300GHz.) Submissions in the 300GHz to 100GHz region may be accepted at the editors discretion if their content is relevant to shorter wavelengths. Submissions must be primarily concerned with and directly relevant to this spectral region.
Its core topics can be summarized as the generation, propagation and detection, of infrared radiation; the associated optics, materials and devices; and its use in all fields of science, industry, engineering and medicine.
Infrared techniques occur in many different fields, notably spectroscopy and interferometry; material characterization and processing; atmospheric physics, astronomy and space research. Scientific aspects include lasers, quantum optics, quantum electronics, image processing and semiconductor physics. Some important applications are medical diagnostics and treatment, industrial inspection and environmental monitoring.