San Jose, CA--TAG Optics (Princeton, NJ) was awarded an honorable mention in the2013 CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Awards program for its ultrahigh-speed TAG Lens 2.0 (see http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2013/04/2013-CLEO-LFW-Innovation-Awards-KMLabs.html). Laser Focus World senior editor Gail Overton interviewed TAG Optics founder and CEO Christian Theriault at CLEO: 2013 in San Jose, CA to better understand the capabilities of the varifocal lens:
TAG Lens 2.0 is a varifocal lens that can extend the depth-of-field of conventional optical systems and enable user-selected focal lengths by using sound to shape light. Unlike other liquid lenses that rely on the deformation of a surface or interface, the TAG Lens 2.0 uses a piezoelectric element to generate sound in the liquid, resulting in a dynamic refractive-index profile matching a large aperture aspherical lens element controlled by the user. The acoustic effect enables scanning over a continuous range of focal lengths in microseconds--orders of magnitude faster than competitive devices.
SOURCE: Laser Focus World and CLEO: 2013; http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-49/issue-06/features/cleo-laser-focus-world-2013-innovation-awards.html