Compensated DOE in a VHG-based waveguide display to improve uniformity.

Augmented reality head-mounted displays (AR-HMDs) utilizing diffractive waveguides have emerged as a popular research focus. However, the illuminance uniformity over the fields of view (FOV) is often unsatisfactory in volume holographic grating (VHG) based waveguide displays. This paper proposes a high uniformity AR waveguide display system. Firstly, the angular uniformity of the VHG-based waveguide displays is analyzed. Subsequently, diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are seamlessly integrated onto the outer coupling surface of the waveguide substrate to improve the angular uniformity through phase compensation. To design the DOE phase, the multi-objective stochastic gradient descent (MO-SGD) algorithm is proposed. A single DOE is used to compensating various images form the image source. A hybrid loss, which includes the learned perceptual image patch similarity (LPIPS) metric, is applied to enhance the algorithm performance. Simulation results show that the proposed method effectively suppresses illumination degradation at the edge FOV in exit pupil images of the waveguide display system. In the results, the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is improved by 5.54 dB. Optical experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The measured nonuniformity (NU) against FOVs is improved by 53.05% from 0.3749 to 0.1760.

Genetic-algorithm-based waveguide display system with a multiplexed volume holographic grating.

Most of the current holographic waveguide display systems are designed based on the center beam. When the incident beam consists of rays with different angles, the field of view and optical efficiency would greatly reduce. The heavy angular dependence of the volume holographic grating (VHG) and the back-coupling loss are two main reasons. This paper proposes a design method of the waveguide display system with multiplexed VHG, which is based on a genetic algorithm to optimize and calculate the parameters both of the VHG and the waveguide. The simulation results show that the diagonal field of view of the holographic waveguide system is increased to 28°, and its optical efficiency is improved by 30%. The design method of the waveguide system with the multiplexed grating proposed in this paper can effectively expand the field of view and improve the optical efficiency.

High quality holographic 3D display with enhanced focus cues based on multiple directional light reconstruction.

Holographic display faces the trade-off between image quality and focus cues, resulting from the specific choice of phase distribution. In this Letter, we propose a speckle-free holographic display with enhanced focus cues by multiple directional light reconstruction. The uniform phase hologram is first generated by the gradient descent optimization algorithm. The blazed grating phase is used to steer the object light to a specific direction. Multiple sub-holograms with different blazed gratings are refreshed fast to reconstruct the images from different directions. Thus, the defocus blur is improved due to the separation of multiple spots on the defocus plane. The multi-plane reconstruction is also realized by pre-processing the depth images to eliminate image separation. The proposed method provides apparent focus cues while maintaining high image qualities, which is expected to realize comfortable holographic near-eye display in the near future.

Holographic multiplane augmented reality head-up display with switchable display modes based on polymer dispersed liquid crystal.

The multiplane augmented reality (AR) head-up display (HUD) is important in improving driving safety and comfort. In this paper, we propose an AR-HUD with switchable display modes based on polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) and lens holographic optical elements (HOEs), which can provide two display modes: the dual-virtual-image mode and the virtual-real-image mode. The dual-virtual-image mode can produce two virtual images at different depths, which can provide a better sense of reality integration for the driver to improve driving safety and comfort. The virtual-real-image mode can produce one far virtual image and one near real image at different depths, and it provides a larger eye box (EB) for both driver and passengers in the car and a higher image contrast. The two display modes can be switched by an electronically controlled scattering module consisting of a pair of PDLC films. The proposed AR-HUD system is compact and equipped with multiplane display and mode-switching functions, and is expected to be applied in the future.

High-brightness hybrid compressive light field display with improved image quality.

Previous LCD-based multiplicative compressive light field (CLF) display has the trade-off between the brightness and the depth of field (DOF). In this paper, we propose a hybrid CLF display using a reflective polarizer and RGB mini-LED panel. By the polarization-multiplexing and the reflector dam (RD) designed on the mini-LED panel, the proposed system can preserve high brightness while enhancing the DOF. Then, a decomposition algorithm is proposed to improve the image quality by depth segmentation and limiting the motion parallax. Compared to the conventional hybrid CLF display, the brightness of the proposed system reaches 348 nits and the reconstruction quality achieves structural similarity index measure (SSIM) improvement by 0.12. The experiments also demonstrate that the proposed method could achieve a higher brightness, larger depth of field, and higher image quality.

Lens array-based holographic 3D display with an expanded field of view and eyebox.

Conventional spatial light modulator (SLM)-based holographic 3D display faces limited field of view (FOV) and eyebox, due to its limited pixel number. In this paper, a lens array is used to expand the FOV and eyebox of an SLM-based holographic display. The hologram is calculated to reconstruct a 3D sub-image array, each sub-image corresponding to a specific perspective of the 3D object. Then, the 3D sub-image array is imaged and magnified by the lens array to integrate to the original 3D image. The FOV is expanded due to the large numerical aperture of the lens, and the eyebox is expanded because the lens array generates multiple viewpoints with a large pitch. The optical experiment realizes a 17.6° FOV and 50 mm eyebox, which contains 4 × 4 viewpoints. Apparent motion parallax is observed through the viewpoint array, which is usually hard to observe in a conventional SLM-based holographic display. The proposed method provides a novel, to the best of our knowledge, way to expand the FOV and eyebox of holographic 3D display without increasing the total pixel number of the SLM.

Secondary lens with hybrid structure of freeform surface and microstructure for ultra-thin backlight unit.

Ultra-thin has become the development trend of the direct-lit backlight unit (BLU). Double freeform surface lenses are commonly used in direct-lit BLUs to reduce thickness. However, for an ultra-thin BLU with quite small optical distance (OD) and a large LED pitch distance, the curvature of the designed lens would be quite large, which would make the final optical performance heavily affected by fabrication errors. This paper proposes a lens with freeform surfaces and microstructures. The rays from LEDs are first collimated by the freeform surfaces and the collimated rays are then reflected by the microstructures to the bottom of the BLU, which can effectively enlarge the spot size and reduce the OD. The simulation results show that the uniformity can be improved from 41.3% of the conventional double freeform surface lens to 83% when OD is 3 mm. Such hybrid lenses can avoid the fabrication of freeform surfaces with large curvature and the advantages of easy design and easy fabrication.

A Depth-Enhanced Holographic Super Multi-View Display Based on Depth Segmentation.

A super multi-view (SMV) near-eye display (NED) effectively provides depth cues for three-dimensional (3D) display by projecting multiple viewpoint or parallax images onto the retina simultaneously. Previous SMV NED have suffered from a limited depth of field (DOF) due to a fixed image plane. In this paper, a holographic SMV Maxwellian display based on depth segmentation is proposed to enhance the DOF. The proposed approach involves capturing a set of parallax images and their corresponding depth maps. According to the depth maps, the parallax images are segmented into N sub-parallax images at different depth ranges. These sub-parallax images are then projected onto N image-recording planes (IRPs) of the corresponding depth for hologram computation. The wavefront at each IRP is calculated by multiplying the sub-parallax images with the corresponding spherical wave phases. Then, they are propagated to the hologram plane and added together to form a DOF-enhanced hologram. The simulation and experimental results are obtained to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in extending the DOF of the holographic SMV displays, while accurately preserving occlusion.

Depth-Enhanced Holographic Super Multi-View Maxwellian Display Based on Variable Filter Aperture.

The super multi-view (SMV) near-eye display (NED) effectively provides depth cues for three-dimensional (3D) displays by projecting multiple viewpoint images or parallax images onto the retina simultaneously. Previous SMV NED suffers from a limited depth of field (DOF) due to the fixed image plane. Aperture filtering is widely used to enhance the DOF; however, an invariably sized aperture may have opposite effects on objects with different reconstruction depths. In this paper, a holographic SMV display based on the variable filter aperture is proposed to enhance the DOF. In parallax image acquisition, multiple groups of parallax images, each group recording a part of the 3D scene on a fixed depth range, are captured first. In the hologram calculation, each group of wavefronts at the image recording plane (IRP) is calculated by multiplying the parallax images with the corresponding spherical wave phase. Then, they are propagated to the pupil plane and multiplied by the corresponding aperture filter function. The size of the filter aperture is variable which is determined by the depth of the object. Finally, the complex amplitudes at the pupil plane are back-propagated to the holographic plane and added together to form the DOF-enhanced hologram. Simulation and experimental results verify the proposed method could improve the DOF of holographic SMV display, which will contribute to the application of 3D NED.

Cross talk-free retinal projection display based on a holographic complementary viewpoint array.

In near-eye displays (NEDs), retinal projection display (RPD) is one kind of promising technology to alleviate the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) issue due to its always-in-focus feature. Viewpoint replication is widely used to enlarge the limited eyebox. However, the mismatch between viewpoint interval and eye pupil diameter will cause the inter-viewpoint cross talk when multiple viewpoints enter the pupil simultaneously. In this Letter, a holographic complementary viewpoint method is proposed to solve this cross talk problem. Instead of avoiding observing multiple viewpoint images simultaneously, it is designed that multiple complementary viewpoints jointly project the complete image on the retina without cross talk. To do this, the target image is segmented into multiple sub-images, each multiplied with a corresponding partial spherical phase to converge to a specific complementary viewpoint. A group of complementary viewpoint enter the eye pupil simultaneously, and each viewpoint project a corresponding sub-image on a specific area of the retina and splice to a complete image. All of the complementary viewpoints are duplicated to an interlaced two-dimensional array to extend the eyebox in both horizontal and vertical directions. Optical experiment verifies that the proposed method could present smooth transition between viewpoints to avoid both inter-viewpoint cross talk and blank image issues.

Reducing crosstalk of a multi-plane holographic display by the time-multiplexing stochastic gradient descent.

Multi-plane reconstruction is essential for realizing a holographic three-dimensional (3D) display. One fundamental issue in conventional multi-plane Gerchberg-Saxton (GS) algorithm is the inter-plane crosstalk, mainly caused by the neglect of other planes' interference in the process of amplitude replacement at each object plane. In this paper, we proposed the time-multiplexing stochastic gradient descent (TM-SGD) optimization algorithm to reduce the multi-plane reconstruction crosstalk. First, the global optimization feature of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) was utilized to reduce the inter-plane crosstalk. However, the crosstalk optimization effect would degrade as the number of object planes increases, due to the imbalance between input and output information. Thus, we further introduced the time-multiplexing strategy into both the iteration and reconstruction process of multi-plane SGD to increase input information. In TM-SGD, multiple sub-holograms are obtained through multi-loop iteration and then sequentially refreshed on spatial light modulator (SLM). The optimization condition between the holograms and the object planes converts from one-to-many to many-to-many, improving the optimization of inter-plane crosstalk. During the persistence of vision, multiple sub-hologram jointly reconstruct the crosstalk-free multi-plane images. Through simulation and experiment, we confirmed that TM-SGD could effectively reduce the inter-plane crosstalk and improve image quality.The proposed TM-SGD-based holographic display has wide applications in tomographic 3D visualization for biology, medical science, and engineering design, which need to reconstruct multiple independent tomographic images without inter-plane crosstalk.

Lensless phase-only holographic retinal projection display based on the error diffusion algorithm.

Holographic retinal projection display (RPD) can project images directly onto the retina without any lens by encoding a convergent spherical wave phase with the target images. Conventional amplitude-type holographic RPD suffers from strong zero-order light and conjugate. In this paper, a lensless phase-only holographic RPD based on error diffusion algorithm is demonstrated. It is found that direct error diffusion of the complex Fresnel hologram leads to low image quality. Thus, a post-addition phase method is proposed based on angular spectrum diffraction. The spherical wave phase is multiplied after error diffusion process, and acts as an imaging lens. In this way, the error diffusion functions better due to reduced phase difference between adjacent pixels, and a virtual image with improved quality is produced. The viewpoint is easily deflected just by changing the post-added spherical phase. A full-color holographic RPD with adjustable eyebox is demonstrated experimentally with time-multiplexing technique.

Rapid Printing and Patterning of Tough, Self-Healable, and Recyclable Hydrogel Thin-Films toward Flexible Sensing Devices.

Direct and rapid printing and surface patterning of hydrogel thin films are of great significance in the construction of advanced electronic devices, yet they are greatly underdeveloped due to the intrinsic contradiction between mechanical strength and self-healability as well as recyclability. Here, we present a universal and rapid slipping-directed route with a newly developed water-soluble star polymer hydrogel for direct and reproducible printing and patterning of freestanding functional thin films with precisely controlled thicknesses, components, and surface structures on a large scale. The resulting thin films combine the features of large transmittance (93%), tough mechanical strength (114 MPa), multiresponsive self-healability, recyclability, and remarkable multifunctionality. With the unique humidity-sensitive properties as motivation, diverse humidity-sensing devices including an actuating switch, a supercapacitive sensor, and a noncontact electronic skin are facilely constructed through the humidity-induced transverse, longitudinal, and patterning assembly techniques, respectively. The method presented here is universal and efficient in the fabrication and assembly of thin films with controlled configuration and functionality for advanced flexible electronics.

Simultaneous multi-channel near-eye display: a holographic retinal projection display with large information content.

Augmented reality (AR) near-eye displays (NEDs) are emerging as the next-generation display platform. The existing AR NED only present one single video channel at a time, same as traditional media such as TVs and smartphones. In this Letter, to the best of our knowledge, we propose for the first time a multi-channel holographic retinal projection display (RPD), which can provide multi-channel image sources simultaneously, thus greatly increasing the information content. Due to the superposition capacity of a hologram, multiple images are projected to different viewpoints simultaneously through multiple spherical wave encoding, so that the viewer can switch among playing channels very fast through eye rotation. A full-color dynamic multi-channel holographic near-eye display is demonstrated in the optical experiment. The proposed method provides a good prospect that the future AR glasses can play dozens of video channels in parallel, and the user can switch among channels freely and efficiently just through a simple eye rotation.

Holographic super multi-view Maxwellian near-eye display with eyebox expansion.

A holographic super multi-view (SMV) Maxwellian display based on flexible wavefront modulation is proposed for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. It solves the issue that the previous holographic Maxwellian displays could not provide depth cues for monocular vision. Different from the previous methods, two or more parallax images are multiplied by quadric phase distributions and converged to the viewpoints existing in the pupil to provide 3-D vision. A time division method is proposed to eliminate the cross talk caused by the coherence of different spherical waves. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately reconstruct images at different depth without cross talk. The proposed method inherits the previous holographic Maxwellian display's advantages of flexible viewpoint position adjustment and large depth of field (DOF). Superior to geometric optics based SMV displays, the proposed system is compact without lens aberration since only a single spatial light modulator (SLM) is needed without any additional optical elements.

Conjugate wavefront encoding: an efficient eyebox extension approach for holographic Maxwellian near-eye display.

Conventional holographic display suffers from the conjugate light issue. In this Letter, we propose to efficiently extend the eyebox of holographic Maxwellian near-eye display by encoding the conjugate wavefront as the multiplication of plane wave phase with the target image. It is interesting that after being focused by the lens, the generated conjugate viewpoints also present erect virtual images with the same image quality as the signal viewpoints. Multiple plane wave encoding is used for eyebox extension, and, because of the utilization of conjugate light, the effect of eyebox extension is doubled. That is, the space bandwidth of the amplitude-type hologram is fully used. A speckless holographic image is produced in mid-air with high quality within a large depth range. The proposed display is compact and promising for the augmented reality near-eye display. Furthermore, it may inspire better solutions for the conjugate light issue of amplitude-type holography.

Ultrathin miniLED backlight system using optical film with microstructures.

Backlight units (BLUs) with miniLEDs as light sources can help improve display contrast and decrease the thickness of a liquid crystal display. Different from the current solutions of a diffuser film and secondary lens, the paper proposes a total-inner-reflection-based design method. The profile of a microstructure is decided when the powers of the rays reflected by the microstructure reach the maximum. Both simulated and experimental results show that uniformity can satisfy the requirement when the source-screen gap is 1 mm. With ultrathin thickness and no requirement for precise positioning, the designed miniLED BLU presents strong practicability.

Lensless full-color holographic Maxwellian near-eye display with a horizontal eyebox expansion.

A lensless full-color holographic Maxwellian near-eye display using a single amplitude-type spatial light modulator is proposed in this Letter. The color holographic image is directly projected onto the retina without any eyepiece. The color crosstalk is clearly separated from the signal in the space owing to the encoded spherical wave and carrier wave. An aperture numerical filter and a real polarized filter are used at the pupil plane to accurately stop the crosstalk light. A high-quality dynamic speckless color holographic image was produced in the mid-air within a specific depth range. The horizontal eyebox expansion is achieved simply through multiple spherical wave encoding and verified through an optical experiment. The proposed display is compact and promising as the augmented reality near-eye display.

Performance improvement for compressive light field display based on the depth distribution feature.

Compressive light field (CLF) display using multi-layer spatial light modulators (SLMs) is a promising technique for three-dimensional (3D) display. However, conventional CLF display usually uses the reference plane with fixed depth, which does not consider the relationship between the depth distribution of the object and the image quality. To improve the quality of the reconstructed image, we further analyze the relationship between them in the paper. The theoretical analysis reveals that the object with a closer distance to the physical layer has a better reconstruction quality when the SLM layers have the same pixel density. To minimize the deviation between the reconstructed light field and the original light field, we propose a method based on the depth distribution feature to automatically guide the light field optimization without increasing the layered number or the refresh rate. When applied to a different scene, it could detect the dense region of depth information and map them as close to the physical layers as possible by offsetting the depth of the reference plane. Simulation and optical experiments with the CLF display are demonstrated to verify the proposed method. We implement a CLF display that consists of four-layer stacked display panels and the distance between two adjacent layers is 5cm. When the proposed method is applied, the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is improved by 2.4dB in simulations and 1.8dB in experiments.

Fast generation of 360-degree cylindrical photorealistic hologram using ray-optics based methods.

Due to the large pixel pitch and limited size of spatial light modulator (SLM), the field of view (FOV) of current holographic display is greatly restricted. Cylindrical holography can effectively overcome the constraints of FOV. However, the existent algorithms of cylindrical hologram are all based on the wave-optics based approach. In this paper, to the best of our knowledge, we adopt the ray-optics based approach in the generation of cylindrical computer generated hologram (CCGH) for the first time. Information of parallax images captured from three-dimensional (3D) objects using a curved camera array is recorded into a cylindrical hologram. Two different recording specific algorithms are proposed, one is based on the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method, and another is based on the pinhole-type integral imaging (PII) method. The simulation results confirm that our proposed methods are able to realize a fast generation of the cylindrical photorealistic hologram.