Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC

Facebook Technologies, LLC

Alexander Koshelev

Giuseppe Calafiore

Lu Lu

Andrew John Ouderkirk

Ningfeng Huang

Jacques Gollier

Babak Amirsolaimani

Wai Sze Tiffany Lam

Hee Yoon Lee

Ying Geng

Scott Charles McEldowney

Pasi Saarikko

Wanli Chi

Fenglin Peng

Stephan Lutgen

Barry David Silverstein

Andrew Maimone

Maxwell Parsons

Gang Li

David Massoubre

Yun-Han Lee

Francois Gerard Franck Olivier

Francois Olivier

Sheng Ye

Tanya Malhotra

Mengfei Wang

Oleg Yaroshchuk

Junren Wang

Christopher Yuan Ting Liao

Austin Lane

Jonathan Robert Peterson

Maik Andre Scheller

Tingling Rao

Arman Boromand

Lafe Joseph Purvis, Ii

John Goward

Liliana Ruiz Diaz

Yimin Ding

A pupil-replicating waveguide usable in a VR display may have a slab of transparent material, an input grating coupler supported by the slab at the center of the slab, with output gratings supported by the slab and surrounding the input grating coupler. The input grating coupler couples image light into the slab, which propagates in the slab by total internal reflections. The out-coupling grating or gratings spread the image light all around the input grating, providing a wide beam of image light illuminating the eyebox of the VR display.

Lightguide with radial pupil replication and visual display based thereon

A device for providing a 1D line of an image is disclosed. The device includes a wavelength-tunable light source for providing image light having the angular distribution encoded in optical spectrum. The device further includes a thin slab waveguide having an out-coupler in form of a diffraction grating for out-coupling the image light at an angle dependent on wavelength. The image may be formed by scanning a collimated beam propagating in the slab waveguide when using tunable monochromatic light sources, or by forming the 1D singular distribution of brightness at a same time when using a tunable-spectrum light sources. The device may be used in a near-eye display for forming a 2D image in angular domain.

Thin waveguide wavelength-selective projector

A beam scanner and a display device is based on a photonic integrated circuit coupling light to a pair of opposed reflectors. One reflector is tiltable and has an opening through which the light is coupled, and the other reflector is configured to focus light, e.g. a concave reflector. A polarization folding configuration is used to cause the focused light propagate through the opening in the first reflector, get collimated by the second reflector, get scanned by the first reflector, and propagate through the second reflector to a pupil-replicating lightguide which provides multiple laterally offset parallel portions of the scanned beam.

Beam scanner with PIC input and display based thereon

A device includes a light source to emit light and a light detector to receive the light emitted by the light source. The device may include a high voltage optical transformer and may be configured such that the light detector is laterally spaced away from the light source. In some architectures, the light source and the light detector may be arranged in a common plane. A photonic integrated circuit may be used to couple light emitted from the light source to the light detector.

Photonic power converter light transport

A waveguide assembly is provided. The waveguide assembly includes a pair of pupil-replicating waveguides. The first pupil-replicating waveguide is configured for receiving an input beam of image light and providing an intermediate beam comprising multiple offset portions of the input beam. The second pupil-replicating waveguide is configured for receiving the intermediate beam from the first pupil-replicating waveguide and providing an output beam comprising multiple offset portions of the intermediate beam. The input beam may be expanded by the waveguide assembly in such a manner that pupil gaps are reduced or eliminated.

Cascaded pupil-replicating waveguides

A display device with a transparent illuminator and an liquid crystal (LC) display panel is disclosed. The transparent illuminator includes a light source and a transparent lightguide, which may be based on a slab of transparent material with zigzag light propagation of the illuminating light in the slab and/or a transparent photonic integrated circuit with singlemode ridge waveguides for spreading the illuminating light in a plane parallel to the plane of LC display panel. The lightguide includes a plurality of grating out-couplers whose position is coordinated with positions of LC pixels for higher throughput. A reflective offset-to-angle optical element may be provided to form an image in angular domain through the LC panel and through the transparent illuminator, resulting in an overall compact and efficient display configuration.

Display device with transparent illuminator

A display device includes a directional illuminator providing a light beam, a display panel downstream of a directional illuminator, for receiving and spatially modulating the light beam, and a beam redirecting module downstream of the display panel, for variably redirecting the spatially modulated light beam. Steering the illuminating light by the beam redirecting module enables one to steer the exit pupil of the display device to match the user's eye location(s).

Display with image light steering

A film stack includes a plurality of first films and a plurality of second films alternately stacked. At least one second film of the plurality of second films includes a solid crystal including crystal molecules aligned in a predetermined alignment direction. At least one first film of the plurality of first films includes an alignment structure configured to at least partially align the crystal molecules of the solid crystal in the predetermined alignment direction.

Optically anisotropic film stack including solid crystal and fabrication method thereof

An illuminator for a display panel includes a light source for providing a light beam and a lightguide coupled to the light source for receiving and propagating the light beam along the substrate. The lightguide includes an array of out-coupling gratings that runs parallel to the array of pixels for out-coupling portions of the light beam from the lightguide such that the out-coupled light beam portions propagate through the substrate and produce an array of optical power density peaks at the array of pixels due to Talbot effect. A period of the array of peaks is an integer multiple of a pitch of the array of pixels.

Talbot pattern illuminator and display based thereon

A waveguide illuminator includes an input waveguide, a waveguide splitter coupled to the input waveguide, and a waveguide array coupled to the waveguide splitter. The waveguide array includes an array of out-couplers out-coupling portions of the split light beam to form an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. Locations of the array of out-couplers are coordinated with locations of individual pixels of the display panel, causing each light beam portion to propagate through a corresponding pixel of the display panel, thereby improving efficiency of light utilization by the display panel.

Waveguide illuminator having waveguide array

A projector includes an illumination waveguide layer, a collimation waveguide layer, and a spatial modulator. The illumination waveguide layer expands a light beam which is coupled to the spatial modulator. The spatial modulator modulates the expanded light beam to provide a line of light points of controllable brightness. The collimation waveguide collimates light of the light points to obtain a fan of collimated light beams. Each collimated light beam of the fan has an angle corresponding to a coordinate of the corresponding light point of the line. A tiltable reflector may be placed at the exit pupil to scan the fan of light beams in a plane non-parallel to the plane of the fan, thus providing a 2D image in angular domain. An array of Mach-Zehnder interferometers may be used in place of the illumination waveguide layer and the spatial modulator to provide the line of light points.

Waveguide-based projector

A waveguide illuminator includes adjacent linear and slab waveguide areas. An input light beam is guided in a linear waveguide, is split into a plurality of sub-beams to propagate in individual linear waveguides to a slab waveguide area and form an output light beam in the slab waveguide area. An array of out-couplers is disposed in the slab waveguide area. The array of out-couplers out-couples portions of the output light beam forms an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. Locations of the array of out-couplers are coordinated with locations of individual pixels of the display panel, thereby improving efficiency of light utilization by the display panel.

Waveguide illuminator having slab waveguide portion

A waveguide illuminator for illuminating a display panel includes an input waveguide, a waveguide splitter coupled to the input waveguide, and a waveguide array coupled to the waveguide splitter. The waveguide array includes an array of out-couplers out-coupling portions of the split light beam to form an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. The out-coupled beam portions undergo optical interference and form a Talbot pattern of illumination correlated with pixel array of the display panel, enabling an optical throughput increase by centering individual Talbot peaks on the display panel pixels.

Display device with waveguide-based talbot illuminator

A waveguide illuminator includes an input waveguide, a waveguide splitter coupled to the input waveguide, and a waveguide array coupled to the waveguide splitter. The waveguide array includes an array of out-coupling gratings that out-couple portions of the split light beam to form an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. The out-coupling gratings may be apodized to reduce light scattering by the gratings. Additionally, gaps between the out-coupling gratings along the waveguides may be filled by gap gratings and/or etched grooves running parallel to the waveguides.

Waveguide array illuminator with light scattering mitigation

A waveguide illuminator includes an input waveguide, a waveguide splitter coupled to the input waveguide, and a waveguide array coupled to the waveguide splitter. The waveguide array includes an array of out-couplers out-coupling portions of the split light beam to form an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. To reduce optical interference, the waveguide illuminator may have two interlaced waveguide arrays energized by two different light sources. Output polarizations of neighboring light pixels of a display illuminated with such waveguide illuminator may be orthogonal to each other. The frames to be displayed may be broken down into sequentially displayed sub-frames with interleaved pixels.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Alexander Koshelev