An adaptive microlens was built with planar aligned liquid crystal and circular electrode structure on one side Of a sandwiched liquid crystal cell. The fringing effects at the edges of the electrodes produce a spatial distribution of the electric field. Applying a voltage deforms the liquid crystal director field. This produces an axial asymmetric profile of the extraordinary refractive index. The liquid crystal cell becomes a convex (converging) lens. A dual frequency liquid crystal mixture was used to study the influence of material parameters on the lens quality. Ale found that the quality of the lens is best if the lens diameter is approximately one and a half the cell thickness. For such microlenses diffraction limited lens properties with Strehl intensities of 0.9 are measured. The lenses show off-axis properties. In the diffraction limited regime, a focal length change of approximately 18% is obtained for different electric control parameters.