Liquid crystal cell and photographic system

Abstract

A liquid crystal cell and a photographic system are described. The liquid crystal cell includes: a refractive index switching layer including a liquid crystal layer consisting of liquid crystals and a substrate on which a plurality of diffractive lenses are formed; a first transparent electrode layer; and a second transparent electrode layer. The liquid crystal layer has a first refractive index and a second refractive index when the first transparent electrode layer and the second transparent electrode layer are powered on and off, respectively. The first refractive index is greater than the second refractive index, and the first refractive index is the same as the refractive index of the diffractive lenses. By means of this solution, free and controllable switching between light field imaging and conventional photographic imaging can be realized in the same system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.