School of Physics & Technology, Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano- Structures of Ministry of Education, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Institute of Medicine and Physics, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Shenzhen Research Institute, Wuhan University, Shenzhen 518000, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Sep 20;15(37):44503-44512. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c08063. Epub 2023 Sep 7.
Compound eyes are high-performing natural optical perception systems with compact configurations, generating extensive research interest. Existing compound eye systems are often combinations of simple uniform microlens arrays; there are still challenges in making more ommatidia on the compound eye surface to focus to the same plane. Here, a biomimetic gradient compound eye is presented by artificially mimicking dragonflies. The multiple replication process efficiently endows compound eyes with the gradient characteristics of dragonfly compound eyes. Experimental results show that the manufactured compound eye allows multifocus imaging by virtue of the gradient ommatidium array arranged closely in a honeycomb pattern while ensuring excellent optical properties and compact configurations. Thousands of ommatidia showing a gradient trend at the millimeter scale while remaining relatively uniform at the micron scale have gradient focal lengths ranging from 260 to 450 μm. This gradient compound eye allows more ommatidia to focus on the same plane than traditional uniform compound eyes, which have experimentally been shown to capture more than 1100 in-plane clear images simultaneously, promising potential applications in micro-optical devices, optical imaging, and biochemical sensing.
复眼是具有紧凑结构的高性能自然光学感知系统，引起了广泛的研究兴趣。现有的复眼系统通常是简单均匀微透镜阵列的组合；在复眼表面上制造更多的小眼来聚焦到同一平面仍然存在挑战。本文通过人工模拟蜻蜓，提出了一种仿生梯度复眼。多次复制过程有效地赋予了复眼以蜻蜓复眼的梯度特征。实验结果表明，所制造的复眼通过排列紧密的蜂窝状梯度小眼阵列实现了多焦点成像，同时确保了优异的光学性能和紧凑的结构。数以千计的小眼在毫米尺度上呈现出梯度趋势，而在微米尺度上保持相对均匀，其梯度焦距范围为 260 至 450μm。与传统的均匀复眼相比，这种梯度复眼可以让更多的小眼聚焦在同一平面上，实验表明它可以同时捕捉超过 1100 个平面内清晰的图像，有望在微光学器件、光学成像和生化传感等领域得到应用。
