High Quality Micro Liquid Crystal Phase Lenses for Full Resolution Image Steering in Auto-stereoscopic Displays

The use of pixel-level tunable liquid crystal (LC) lenses to steer the images shown on a flat panel display in full resolution for auto-stereoscopic applications was proposed. Micro lenticular LC lenses of different full widths ranging from 40 to 140 µm were designed and fabricated with laser patterned transparent ITO electrodes as narrow as 10 µm in width and two LC materials of high birefringence. Optical characterization of the lenses showed consistent parabolic phase profiles closely matched to that of ideal lenses. A proof-of-concept device with an array of tunable micro LC lenses each covers two sub-pixels of different colors was fabricated and applied on a standard computer monitor to confirm its capability of sub-pixel-level image steering.