Liquid Lenses for Camera Phones @ The Register
Lenses made of liquid? How on earth does that work? Let's find out:
Quote:
The lens has a simple structure: two liquids, of equal density, sandwiched between two windows in a conical vessel. One liquid is water, which is conductive. The other, oil, acts as a lid, allowing the engineers to work with a fixed volume of water, and provides a measure of stability for the optical axis. The interface between the oil and water will change shape depending on the voltage applied across the conical structure. At zero volts, the surface is flat, but at 40 volts, the surface of the oil is highly convex, Paillard said.
More details here.