ELECTRO-OPTIC APERTURE DEVICE

• US 20140192257A1
• Filed: 01/02/2014
• Published: 07/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Gleason, Jeffrey Nathan, Yang, Henry H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,307,158 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/363
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 1/04 Optical or mechanical part supplementary adjustable parts
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/153 Constructional details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/55 Optical parts specially adapted for electronic image sensors; Mounting thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/73 by influencing the exposure time
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/75 by influencing optical camera components

Abstract

An electro-optic aperture has a stack that includes a front transparent conductor medium, an active electro-chromic medium, and a rear transparent conductor medium. The front and rear transparent conductor mediums are directly connected to each other by a conductive section located within the imaging path. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A portable consumer electronics device comprising:

a handheld portable device housing; and

an electronic camera module integrated in the housing, the module having a focusing lens to focus light from a scene, an imaging sensor to receive the focused light, and an electro-optic variable aperture to allow different amounts of the light from the scene to reach the imaging sensor through an imaging path,

wherein the aperture has a stack that includes a front transparent conductor medium, an electrolyte medium, an active electro-chromic medium, and a rear transparent conductor medium, and wherein the front and rear transparent conductor mediums are directly connected to each other by a conductive section that is located within the imaging path.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the conductive section is of the same material as the front and rear transparent conductor mediums.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein the conductive section is oriented at about ninety degrees relative to the front and rear conductor mediums and is located closer to a center, rather than a periphery, of a cross-section of the imaging path.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein the conductive section is located at about a center of the cross-section of the imaging path, the device further comprising a driver circuit that is to apply an activation voltage to the front and rear conductor mediums so that the aperture becomes least opaque at the conductive section and progressively more opaque further away from the center.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein the electrolyte medium comprises an ion source medium and an ion conduction medium.

6. The device of claim 1 wherein the aperture stack further comprises a front substrate on which the front transparent conductive medium is formed.

7. The device of claim 6 wherein the aperture stack further comprises a rear substrate on which the rear transparent conductive medium is formed.

8. The device of claim 1 wherein the aperture is positioned so that the front transparent conductor medium is closer to the scene than the rear transparent conductor medium.

9. The device of claim 1 further comprising:

a driver circuit to produce a variable voltage and being coupled to the transparent conductor mediums of the aperture, so as to apply the variable voltage to activate the aperture;

an exposure controller to receive a user-triggered shutter release command and in response signal a) the driver circuit to apply a particular voltage to activate the aperture and b) the sensor to apply a particular integration time, in accordance with a given exposure setting; and

a digital image storage coupled to receive a captured digital image from the sensor.

10. The device of claim 1 wherein the handheld portable device housing has a side that joins a front face and a rear face of the housing, and wherein the camera module is oriented in the housing such that the focusing lens is substantially parallel with the rear face of the housing and receives light from the scene through an opening in the rear face of the housing.

11. The device of claim 1 wherein the electro-chromic medium comprises a layer of electro-chromic material that is substantially perpendicular to an optical axis of the camera module and that has essentially uniform thickness.

12. The device of claim 1 further comprising:

another transparent conductor medium;

another electro-chromic medium sandwiched between the another transparent conductor medium and the rear transparent conductor medium; and

a control circuit that determines voltages to be applied to the transparent conductor mediums in response to a plurality of input desired states including a clear state, an aperture stop state, and a neutral density state.

13. The device of claim 6 wherein the front substrate is a focusing lens of the camera module.

14. The device of claim 6 wherein the front substrate is an external housing wall of the portable device.

15. A portable consumer electronics device comprising:

a handheld portable device housing; and

an electronic camera module integrated in the housing, the module having a focusing lens to focus light from a scene, an imaging sensor to receive the focused light, and an electro-optic variable aperture to allow different amounts of the light from the scene to reach the imaging sensor,

wherein the aperture has a stack that includes a front transparent conductor medium, an electrolyte medium, an active electro-chromic medium, and a rear transparent conductor medium.

16. The device of claim 15 wherein the electro-chromic medium comprises a layer of electro-chromic material that is substantially perpendicular to an optical axis of the camera module but that has tapered thickness.

17. The device of claim 16 wherein the electro-chromic layer is substantially ring-like or annular in that the tapered thickness drops to essentially zero in an inner region of the layer.

18. The device of claim 15 wherein the front transparent conductor medium is a patterned layer so that a ring-like current is generated through the electro-chromic medium when an activation voltage is applied to the front and rear conductor mediums.

19. The device of claim 18 wherein a hole is formed within an inner region of the patterned layer of the front transparent conductor medium, such that essentially no sufficient current is generated through the portion of the electro-chromic medium that lies directly under the hole which would activate the electro-chromic medium.

20. The device of claim 15 wherein the front transparent conductor medium contains an inner plug region that is substantially electrically isolated from an outer region, so that a ring-like current is generated through the electro-chromic medium when an activation voltage is applied to the outer region of the front conductor medium and the rear conductor medium.