Liquid Lenses

Here is another exciting technology on the anvil. Or rather, it has been there for last two years, but is now showing some signs of life. Technology in question is liquid lenses for cameras. Yes, you read that right, "Liquid Lenses". This technology first made an appearance sometime in 2004 by a French startup Varioptic. Essentially consisting of two liquids, water and oil contained in a conical enclosure, lens is made to change its physical characteristics by application of voltage. At zero volt, shape of lens is flat, but at 40v, it attains a distinctively convex.

This technolgy was perfected by German engineers at Fraunhaffer institute working with engineers from Varioptics. They developed a system of four liquid lenses that could snap from 1-2.5x magnification at the touch of a button. This was a rudimentary technology demonstrator and was used by Samsung in their nondescript phones. These lenses received a lot of attention because of lower power requirements and absence of moving parts. After a long hiatus, this technology now seems to be making waves again with Seiko and Varioptic announcing manufacture 500,000 of these lenses. Meant to target 5.0 mega pixel, this technology, if it succeeds, will revolutionise the way we experience our photographic gadgets.