Back in 2021 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."

Today, the U.S. Patent Office published a patent application from Apple titled "Fluid-Filled Camera Modules." In it's patent background Apple notes that a portable electronic device may include a camera module for capturing an image. A conventional camera module includes an image sensor aligned with a focal plane defined by a lens group. In many cases, one or more lenses of the lens group and/or the image sensor itself may be movable to adjust focus and/or for optical image stabilization.

Image sensors, actuators, processing circuitry, and other electronic components within a camera module can generate significant waste heat. As a result, many camera modules are artificially performance limited. For example, high speed autofocus operations and/or high framerate modes may only be usable for limited period before a thermal shutoff threshold is reached. Apple's latest patent is to remedy this.

Fluid-Filled Camera Modules

Apple's patent presents a way to eliminate the drawbacks of conventional camera modules by including a fluid volume within the camera module itself. The fluid may be a dielectric fluid in many embodiments (although this may not be required if electronic components are suitably capped or otherwise sealed), such as a liquid dielectric.

An example fluid is mineral oil. The fluid can serve as a heat sink and/or a thermal mass capable to absorb waste heat generated by the camera module or another source of heat. This may be particularly advantageous when the fluid is used to cool moveable components within the camera module (e.g., a moving image sensor), as it may not be possible to thermally bond these components to a housing of the camera module.

Additionally, the use of a liquid may act to dampen movement of components within the camera module (e.g., passive movement resulting from vibration or external forces applied to the camera module and/or unintended ringing that may occur as a result controlled movement of a component), which may reduce damage to or wear on these components over time. For example, in instances where a device incorporating the camera module is dropped, the fluid may reduce the resulting force of an impact that may occur between components of the camera module (e.g., by reducing the speed of relative movement between these components) and thereby reduce the likelihood that these components are damaged.

The camera module includes a substrate that supports an image sensor and/or one or more filters such as infrared cut filters. In some example constructions, the substrate itself includes an aperture through a central region thereof and an image sensor is disposed on a lower surface of the substrate (e.g., to overlap the aperture below the substrate), and an infrared cut filter is positioned and coupled to an upper surface of the substrate (e.g., to overlap the aperture above the substrate). This construction is not required of all embodiments and in some cases, an image sensor can be disposed on other surface of the substrate.

For full details, review Apple's patent application 20250080815. Apple lists Zach Birnbaum as the lead inventor. Birnbaum is a Mechanical Engineer focused on iPhone camera features and has 20 patents to his credit

Liquid Lens Systems also for possible future HMDs

Beyond Fluid-Filled Camera Modules, Apple is also working on using liquid lenses for future HMDs as noted in the two patent reports linked to below:

On October 15, 2023, A Second 'Liquid Lens' Invention from Apple has Surfaced that could be used in a Future version of Vision Pro to save on Prescription Lenses+

On January 23, 2025, we posted yet another report on this technology titled "A new Apple patent does a Deep Dive into Future Fluid-Filed Tunable Lenses for Vision-related Devices." It was focused on future smartglasses.