Graphene-Based Bioinspired Compound Eyes for Programmable Focusing and Remote Actuation

Inspired by creatures' eyes, bioinspired compound eyes (BCEs) endowed with larger fields of view and vari-focal capability are extremely appealing in micro-optical devices. However, the present actuation strategies of BCEs commonly demand complicated fields, e.g., electro-wetting actuation, dielectrophoretic drive and pressure gradient, which greatly limits their practical applications. In this work, the photothermal conversion of graphene nanosheets (GNSs) is first utilized to fabricate lenslets toward BCEs. Under the actuation of near-infrared (nIR) pulsed laser, GNSs absorb photo energy and convert it to thermal energy, which increases the temperature of lenslets and then leads to the adjustment of lenslet curvature. At a result, BCEs manifest a reversible 4-fold zoom and a wide FOV up to 160°. In addition, BCEs also perform the programmable focusing by selectively confining nIR laser to a vari-focal region. In contrast with traditional BCEs, graphene-based BCEs are versatile with wide FOV and vari-focal ability by nIR actuation. Herein, these excellent properties make graphene-based BCEs promising for remote-driven microfluidic devices.