2018 Medal Winners | francais

The 2018 CAP-INO Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics

is awarded to

Tigran Galstian

"It is a great honor for me to receive the Canadian Association of Physicists and the Institut National d'Optique Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics. Thank you. I would like also to thank my collaborators who made this possible including my colleagues who accepted and supported me all these years." winner quote

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) and the Institut National d'Optique (INO) are pleased to announce that the 2018 CAP-INO Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics is awarded to Tigran Galstian, Universite Laval, in recognition of for the development and successful transfer of the “crystal lens” technology to the industry, for applications in cellphone cameras and dynamic lighting.. announcement

The innovation of Professor Galstian is an
electrically-variable lens made of liquid crystals.
It is an ultra-thin component typically composed
of two liquid crystal layers sandwiched between
thin glass substrates, which become an optical
lens focusing light with the application of an
electric field. In traditional imaging systems, the
focus is adjusted mechanically by moving one or
several standard lenses. In contrast, the liquid
crystal lens requires no mechanical movement.
For this innovation, Professor Galstian and his team have merged two key technologies: integrated
circuitry and liquid crystal displays. The
resulting lens shows exceptional characteristics
at a very low fabrication cost since the wafer fabrication technique, commonly
used for manufacturing computer chips, is employed. This enables thousands of lenses to be produced simultaneously.

Digital camera manufacturers are now trying to design entire cameras with the wafer fabrication method by layering the image sensor, the standard and the variable lenses and then by dicing the wafer in order to obtain thousands of cameras, eliminating the requirement to assemble these devices one by one. This represents a truly remarkable technological revolution in digital imaging enabled by Professor Galstian’s electrically variable lens.
The lens is perfectly suited for large scale production of miniature devices. The first market addressed is that of digital cameras for mobile devices like cell phones, webcams and tablets. Other important applications include fiber optics, micro endoscopy as well as accommodative human vision (via contact lens and intra ocular implants) and augmented reality. nominator citation

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