A Future version of Apple Vision Pro may use Tunable Liquid Lenses
Two years ago Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Suppliers LG InnoTek and Corning Share Patents on a next-gen "Liquid Lens" that could replace the need for a Periscope Zoom Lens." The report noted that LG InnoTek and Corning were collaborating in the research of liquid lens. The pair decided in April 2021 to share 50/50 stakes in nine key US patents related to liquid lens. China's Xiaomi was the first to demonstrate their liquid lens for their Mi Mix Fold smartphone as presented below.
While Apple may consider liquid lenses for future iPhones, today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to liquid lenses designed for a possible future version of Vision Pro.
Electronic Devices With Liquid Lenses
Apple notes that a head-mounted device may have lenses. A user may view images through the lenses from eye boxes. For example, the head-mounted device may have a left display that presents a left image to a left eye box through a left lens and a right display that presents a right image to a right eye box through a right lens.
The lenses of a head-mounted device may include tunable liquid lenses. Each lens may have a lens chamber filled with liquid. The lens chamber may have rigid and/or flexible walls that form optical lens surfaces. Actuators and/or pump and reservoir systems may deform the lens surfaces in response to control signals from a control circuit to tune the lens.
Inorganic dielectric particles or other refractive-index-adjustment particles may be used to adjust the refractive index of the liquid in the lens chamber and thereby adjust the refractive index of the lens. The particles may be subwavelength in size.
During operation, a user may view visual content such as virtual reality content or augmented reality content through the lenses of the head-mounted device. To accommodate users with different types of vision (nearsightedness, farsightedness, etc.) and/or to display images at different image distances (e.g., to create virtual images in different image planes), the lenses may be tunable liquid lenses.
Apple's patent FIG. 3 below is a cross-sectional view of an illustrative liquid lens; FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of an illustrative multi-chamber liquid lens.
More specifically, Apple's patent FIG. 3 covers lens #30 that may have a chamber defined by optical lens surface walls such as lower (inner) chamber wall #50 facing rear face R (the +Z direction) and an opposing upper (outer) chamber wall #52 facing front face F (the −Z direction).
Lens walls (sometimes referred to as chamber walls, optical surface walls, lens optical surface walls, lens chamber optical surface walls, lens chamber layers, optical surface layers, etc.) such as walls #50 and #52 may be formed from transparent materials such as polymer and may include rigid and/or flexible portions. Wall #50 may be, for example, a rigid dome-shaped wall (e.g., a dome-shaped rigid polymer layer that forms a concave lens surface) and wall #52 may be, for example, a flexible lens chamber membrane.
These walls and additional lens chamber walls such as sidewall structures #58 may form a hollow liquid lens chamber that is filled with liquid #54 (e.g., oil) having optional refractive-index-adjustment particles such as particles #56.
To adjust lens #30 (e.g., to change the shape of the lens chamber containing liquid #54 and thereby change the focal length and/or other optical properties of lens #30), liquid #54 may be pumped into and/or out of the lens chamber using pump and liquid reservoir system #62 and/or the lens chamber for lens #30 may be adjusted using one or more electrically controlled actuators #60 under control from control circuitry in device #10.
For finer details, review Apple's patent application number 20230258944.
Whether this liquid lens system could replace the bulky Zeiss lens system for prescription lenses that Apple introduced at their Vision Pro Keynote in June is unknown at this time.
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