MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION OF A MICRO OPTOFLUIDIC LENS

Abstract

In this research, we present a framework to investigate the characteristics of a micro optofluidic lens using the finite volume method. We compared the characteristics of micro optofluidic lens with rectangular, diamond, and circular expansion chambers. Among these three geometries, we found that circular chamber has the most stable flow. The simulated curvature of the micro optofluidic lens with circular expansion chamber agrees with analytical and experimental results. A rectangular expansion chamber has a shortcoming. At high flow rate ratio between core and side flow rate, the curvature of the lens is decreased due to wall effect. In addition, we also explored the possibility of using double geometry expansion chamber. We observed that, given the same inlet flow conditions, the curvature of lens obtained with double circular expansion chamber is larger than single circular chamber. As such, the double geometry lens has higher tunability in terms of the focal distance. Furthermore, we present a new design to realize a biconcave lens. Using this new design, we demonstrated the ability to perform lens switching by controlling the flow rates of the side streams.