Artificial Implementation of Compound Eyes

With advances in miniaturization, microlenses continue to play important roles in many fields, including artificial implementation of compound eyes [2,19], optical commimication [20,21], photolithography [3,22], biomedical imaging systems [2,23,24], orthoscopic three-dimensional (3D) imaging [25,26], and labs on chips [4,27-29]. 

Compoimd eyes in nature present intriguing subjects in physiological optics because of their unique optical schemes for imaging. Artificial implementation of compound eyes has attracted a great deal of research interest because the wide field of view (FOV) of a compoimd eye exhibits a huge potential for medical, industrial, and military applications [2]. 

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This chapter starts by describing the ubiquitous problems in optics, in particular, those that can be solved by liquid microlenses. Then we will discuss the benefits and advantages of liquid microlenses in many applications artificial implementation of compound eyes endoscopic fiber microscopes for confocal reflectance and real-time optical coherence tomography (OCT) photolithography optical communications imaging systems and labs on chips. 

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