Metasurface eyepiece for augmented reality

Abstract

Recently, metasurfaces composed of artificially fabricated subwavelength structures have shown remarkable potential for the manipulation of light with unprecedented functionality. Here, we first demonstrate a metasurface application to realize a compact near-eye display system for augmented reality with a wide field of view. A key component is a see-through metalens with an anisotropic response, a high numerical aperture with a large aperture, and broadband characteristics. By virtue of these high-performance features, the metalens can overcome the existing bottleneck imposed by the narrow field of view and bulkiness of current systems, which hinders their usability and further development. Experimental demonstrations with a nanoimprinted large-area see-through metalens are reported, showing full-color imaging with a wide field of view and feasibility of mass production. This work on novel metasurface applications shows great potential for the development of optical display systems for future consumer electronics and computer vision applications.

Progresses in the practical metasurface for holography and lens

“…Recently, the commercial market for head mounting type devices such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) is increasing, and as the importance of lightness and compactness of devices such as cameras and optical sensors used in smart phones emerges, a demand for a new platform is increasing [99][100][101]. Through the Fresnel lens, or Echelette-type lens, the thickness of the lens can be reduced, but in spite of their potential, such a lens has problems such as the reduction of light efficiency compared with shadow effects [6,102].…”

“…The metalens has been expected to contribute to the miniaturization of the optical instruments as it can contain much more information than conventional lenses or optic components [99,133,[138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149][150]. Figure 8A shows an example of metalens that used the property of the PB phase: The sign of the PB phase is reversed according to the handedness of the incident light [122,144].…”

“…(E) Achromatic metalens array for full-color light-field imaging [148]. (F) Metasurface eyepiece for AR [99]. (G) Nano-optic endoscope for high-resolution optical coherence tomography in vivo [149].…”

Large-area pixelated metasurface beam deflector on a 12-inch glass wafer for random point generation

“…For large-area nanostructure patterning, both nanoimprint lithography and photolithography have been developed. Nanoimprint lithography, based on mold, is able to pattern the metasurface by creating a mechanical deformation on an imprint resist [11] or a metasurface layer [12] or by transferring the pattern onto the substrate as etching hard mask [13]. Although these demonstrate the feasibility of nanoimprint lithography for mass production, because of the contact mode of nanoimprinting, there still are concerns about defects, throughput and template wear.…”

P‐92: A Lensless Retinal Scanning Display for Augmented Reality

“…Retinal projection displays refer to a type of near-eye displays (NEDs), in which the image is directly projected to the retina. Compared to combiner-based [1][2][3][4] and waveguide-based [5][6][7][8] NEDs, this type of NEDs have an edge on achieving ultra-large field of view (FOV). However, there are also a number of issues holding them back from the applications.…”