More than a century ago, people marveled at an unusual device that allowed them to get their image without having to pose for an artist for weeks. And we are talking about such a device as a camera. Some people called it an extraordinary technological breakthrough, while others believed it was absolute magic. One way or another, the demand for this device grew every year, and there were queues of people who wanted to get a photo with their family. However, the device itself was large and very demanding to operate. A photographer of that time had to do a lot of complicated manipulations to satisfy his clients and the needs of the camera itself. He worked with hazardous chemicals and had to shake every delicate and fragile device part.
But nowadays, we can only imagine our lives with a phone with cameras of different quality that help us quickly and easily capture priceless moments on the internal storage. At some point, there's room for improvement. But as it turns out, meticulous inventors still find ways to surprise consumers with such technologies.
Professional photographers are still trying to solve the problem of focusing on the frame. They have several options of devices with different capabilities or interchangeable lenses to meet their requirements for the structure. And it was this issue that prompted the inventors to develop the liquid lens technology. What are its advantages? Today we will try to figure out why this technology is the future of the photo and video industry.
How Does Liquid Lens Technology Work?
Liquid lens technology takes inspiration from the human eye and mimics its bionics.
As a reminder, the functionality of a liquid lens is aimed at facilitating and speeding up the focusing process.
The speed with which the lens can change shape may seem like magic. But all of these processes have a completely logical and scientific explanation.
So we have a hydrophobic surface; we add a liquid to it, which is formed into a drop because it repels from this surface. This is one side. And on the other, we apply a conductive material, usually aluminum. And our fall is in between. When we use an electric field to the surface opposite the hydrophobic one, the liquid will be electrostatically attracted to it. And due to this process, it will quickly change its shape. This exciting process is called electrowetting. And it is the basis of liquid lens technology.
The stronger the magnetic field, the stronger the liquid is attracted to the conductive material. And accordingly, if you control this field's power, the liquid's shape will change. If this liquid is used as a lens, the different forms it turns into have different focal lengths, which can dramatically alter the image that the sensor receives.
Why Use Liquid Lens Technology?
In general, it's worth noting that liquid lens technology was first discussed as a mass technology in 2017, and it has been used in commercial photography equipment since 2002, with the French company Varioptic at the forefront. It was helped by the guys from Corning, who created protected glass for cameras and displays. And in 2021, Xiaomi announced in a press release for a new phone model that the camera would use this technology. Liquid lenses have been used in special equipment and industrial machinery for several years, but the technology has been known since the late 19th century.
Because of their ability to focus like a normal eye, their use is easy to imagine in various fields. It is especially in demand in high-volume production, where objects of different sizes are usually used. For example, pharmaceutical companies check and inspect pills, capsules, gel tablets, etc. Usually, to perform a detailed inspection of products, such enterprises use more than one camera with different imaging systems to constantly change the focus. But with this technology, this can now be avoided.
Mechanical Lenses vs. Liquid Lenses
We have decided on the main thing. The lens is responsible for the image quality you get as a result. But now, let's look through a conventional lens and try to understand its technology.
So, a lens as an optical device is a pipe in which lenses are arranged sequentially. All of these lenses are different and selected to get a specific processed image at the output. Moving lenses are responsible for focusing and zooming in and out. It also has a built-in aperture mechanism that, like a tap in the shower, regulates the strength of the luminous flux, thus affecting the exposure in the frame.
There is a more straightforward, cheaper, and older type of lens - a spherical lens, and a newer, more complex, and more expensive one - an aspherical lens. The former is relatively easy to manufacture, but with the improvement of optics, it became clear that some of their properties hinder the development of a clear picture. Scientists call this problem "spherical aberration," which does not allow spherical lenses to concentrate the light beam at one point. So, to avoid this problem, an aspherical lens was invented, which has the following advantages: it allows you to bypass spherical aberration even in high-power lenses; it has a better aperture; it eliminates or completely removes spherical distortion of the image.
All of this is to say that, given the multilayered complexity of the design, manufacturing technology, and the large dimensions of some lenses, the choice of potential users is influenced. It takes much time to determine which camera will meet your needs. Buy additional lenses. Even when using their phone, many people need to buy a different lens, for example, for macro photography, to maintain high image quality. And these are just a few of the problems that the new technology can potentially solve.
Advantages of Liquid Lenses
Liquid lens technology's first and obvious advantage is the availability of multiple focal lengths in one lens. After all, it does not provide them due to the multilayer nature of the lenses inside the lens and its size; it only needs to supply a small amount of electric current. This means that it will significantly reduce the size and weight of the camera itself while maintaining its ability to display images with different fields of view and zoom levels.
This leads to the next advantage. This is the speed with which the lens itself can change focus. After all, when you zoom in on an image using a conventional lens, you wait for the motors to move the lens or do it manually and then adjust the camera position and focus. This is a problem for some cameras if you need to focus on moving objects. It would be best if you had the camera and bulky tripods to fix the device and set up image stabilization. If this needs to be addressed, you will see these jumps when viewing photos or videos. And they often spoil the shot.
Given the simplicity of the internal design, the presence of a liquid lens significantly reduces the risk of significant mechanical damage. After all, now there are no more fragile parts inside that are often afraid of the slightest external influence.
Everyone knows that mechanical systems wear out despite their quality. It depends on how often you use your device, how you take care of it, whether it has been damaged, whether there has been any interference with the internal system, etc. Since liquid lenses have no mechanical parts, their service life is significantly extended.
Mechanical lenses use much more energy to adjust distance and focus. Liquid lenses, in turn, require less power, which makes them more energy efficient when performing these manipulations.
Who is using liquid lenses now?
These technological advantages allow liquid lenses to adapt quickly to household and everyday technologies, such as barcode scanners. Scanning must be fast and constantly performed at different distances. And we have already made sure that this is fine for this lens.
They are also in great demand in medicine due to their size, focusing speed, and energy saving. Liquid lenses are used to create laparoscopic cameras. They instantly focus inside the body, speeding up surgeons' work during complex operations.
Undoubtedly, one of the areas where this technology is experiencing rapid development is in the manufacture of cameras for mobile phones. After all, there are always many requirements for them. Users want to have high-quality photos simply by using something that is always at hand and has a compact size. Without considering that this camera has somewhat limited space, it isn't easy to fit all the necessary parts for high-quality work.
So, given all of the above, it is easy to conclude that liquid lens technology is the future of fast image processing and capture. After all, it has the potential to solve the complex tasks and requirements put forward by users. Therefore, work is still underway to improve these lenses. But the claimed advantages scream that the era of liquid lenses will soon begin.