Augmented reality near-eye display using Pancharatnam-Berry phase lenses

Abstract

An augmented reality (AR) near-eye display using Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase lenses is proposed. PB phase lenses provide different optical effects depending on the polarization state of the incident light. By exploiting this characteristic, it is possible to manufacture an AR combiner with a small form factor and a large numerical aperture value. The AR combiner adopted in the proposed system operates as a convex lens for right-handed circularly polarized light and operates as transparent glass for left-handed circularly polarized light. By merging this combiner with a transparent screen, such as diffuser-holographic optical elements (DHOEs), it is possible to make an AR near-eye display with a small form factor and a wide field of view. In addition, the proposed AR system compensates the chromatic aberration that occurs in PB phase lens by adopting three-layered DHOEs. The operating principle of the proposed system is covered, and its feasibility is verified with experiments and analysis.

Progress of display performances: AR, VR, QLED, and OLED

“…The effort to enhance the FOV for the VR NEDs is usually focused on the development of new lens optics [17,18] [19,20]. The use of the geometric-phase (GP) lens has also been reported to achieve over 80 degrees FOV by enabling transmissiontype configuration [9,21]. The angular resolution of a NED is defined by the number of pixels in a unit degree.…”

Liquid Crystal Optical Device

“…The optical power can reach +2.4 diopters for a 13 mm aperture. This type of lens has been proposed to solve the problem of accommodation-convergence in head-mounted display devices [164,165] and to generate spatially separated focuses [166].…”

Holographically Printed Freeform Mirror Array for Augmented Reality Near-Eye Display

“…In order to respond to a focal change of the user's eyes, AR glasses should change the depth of the displayed image in real-time or provide an image with a wide depth of field (DOF) to see a clear image regardless of the eye focus [16]. To construct the wide DOF AR display, research on retinal projection type near-eye displays (NEDs) has been actively conducted [2]- [4], [8], [17], [18]. The most typical retinal projection type display is a Maxwellian view NED.…”