Researchers based out of the Philippines have created a tunable liquid lens system that could be used in classrooms and other low-cost environments. The system is devised of several droplets of water-based liquid, which vary in size and curvature. The drops are then situated on a small, flat surface. This allows the user to tune the device.
Mechanical devices that allow for this are often more complex and expensive, which is why the researchers were so excited about the development. They highlighted the development in a paper published in Results in Optics, describing how they pulled it off.
The researchers say they used a process called electrospinning to coat a glass slide with PVC (polyvinyl chloride). This made the surface more hydrophobic, which is what allows the water droplets in the tunable liquid lens system to maintain their spherical appearance.
While this new system is more accessible and cost-efficient, it’s also much more limited than traditional, mechanical systems. However, those limitations are what help make it a perfect option for classrooms or simple laboratory-scale projects.
Additionally, the tunable liquid lens system acts as baseline proof that this concept is worthy of more consideration. The appeal of these lighter and less complex systems is that they are smaller and easier to move around.
They’re also much simpler, as they don’t require mechanical parts to adjust. This makes them ideal for experiments where larger systems won’t work. Perhaps in the future, researchers could build off this idea and create a system that is more sophisticated and advanced.
For now, though, it at least gives classrooms another option to turn to when they’re performing various experiments using lenses and lights or lasers.
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