Corning: Liquid lens best for when focal length keep changing

Liquid lens can help with changing focal points in cameras, Frederic Laune, business manager at Corning Varioptic Lenses, said.

Corning was also looking to expand the application of the technology based on its successful application in medical and industrial sectors, the manager told TheElec in an interview.

Liquid lens has liquid materials filled inside the physical lens. It uses currents and voltages to send signals to change the curvature of the lens to control the focal length of the camera.

This allows the lens to stay fixed without moving around while adjusting the focal length like lens made purely out of glasses or resins.

Liquid lens can be used to solve the focal length changing problem, Laune said. 

The technology is used where the distance between the camera and the object is constantly changing.

Liquid lens allows the cameras to focus on the object whatever their distance may be, he said.

Previously, lens was put close to the image sensor, or they were set so that they can move away as far as possible from the image sensor to maintain the focus on the object.

Actuators are used in large reflective cameras and small camera modules on smartphones for this task.

However, these mechanical solutions are vulnerable to external shock and increase the power consumption of devices, while also being slow, Laune noted.

These limitations mean industrial cameras rarely use these legacy solutions, he said.

Liquid lens is durable against shakes and external shocks, while they can find the focus quickly, he said.

Corning's liquid lens is used in machine vision, bar code readers and medical videos, the manager touted.

Liquid lens are also used in hands-free bar code analysis and other industrial augmented reality applications, he said.