Bioinspired Artificial Compound Eyes: Characteristic, Fabrication, and Application

Abstract The natural compound eyes provide great inspiration for design of advanced imaging devices. Artificial compound eyes (ACEs) with close‐packed microlens arrays (MLAs) have attracted enormous research interests due to their remarkable advantages in modern micro‐optical systems, such as miniaturization, high integration, tunable focal length, large field of view, and moving objects tracking. Over a decade of intense research, numerous approaches have been successfully developed to fabricate MLAs with high surface morphology and excellent optical performance. This paper gives a review of progress and continuous effort in the development and practical applications of ACEs. At first, two representative visual systems: single‐lens eye and compound eye are briefly introduced. Then, the main characteristic parameters of the microlens and MLAs are presented. After that, various fabrication technologies with different mechanisms that are successfully applied in planar and curved MLAs are summarized. The advantages and limitations of each processing method are discussed. Subsequently, some important practical applications of MLAs, particularly on imaging, beaming homogenizing, sensing, light extraction technique, micro‐total analysis systems (µ‐TAS), and microfabrication are also given. Finally, the current challenges and further prospects of this field are highlighted.