We first explore the operating principle and optical performances of dioptric-power and astigmatism-variation lens doublets based on the L. W. Alvarez design. These fall within the scope of two ophthalmic applications: ophthalmic glasses for the correction of presbyopia, taking into account any type of ametropia, and spherocylindrical refractors. Second, we present a multiconfiguration optimization method leading to improved optical performances of such doublets over a wide field of view. We then investigate the particular distribution of the curvature on the complex surfaces of the two lenses after optimization.

We consider diffraction by pixelated lenses when the lens size is significantly smaller than the diffraction pattern of single pixels. In that case, the diffraction orders show shapes that have not been identified in earlier studies and that are quite sensitive to the pixel filling ratio as well as to decentering.

We propose to size a light field display based on a standard smartphone screen to which is associated a simple array of custom-made microlenses, aimed at evaluating the refractive error of a user’s eye. We show theoretically that, to that end, we can display some content with a constant angular resolution over a wide range of refractive errors, i.e.,  − 6 D to + 4 D in terms of sphero-cylindrical needs, and show some experimental results.