Apple Inc.

Guocheng Shao

Ueyn L Block

Tobias J Harrison-Noonan

Mathieu Charbonneau-Lefort

Christopher M Dodson

Serhan O Isikman

Kenneth John Vampola

Itaru L Hiromi

Tyler S Bushnell

Christopher Matthew Werner

Trevor J Ness

Sunggu Kang

Ryan C Perkins

Phil M Hobson

Sheng Liu

Xianwei Zhao

Tingjun Xu

Xingxing Cai

Tianbo Sun

Guanyi Gao

William H Greenbaum

Mahesh B Chappalli

Koorosh Aflatooni

Lei Yu

Dong Zheng

Richard A Ruh

Anand K Chamakura

Meng-Huan Ho

Mahdi Nezamabadi

Ove Lyngnes

Aleksandr N Polyakov

Niva A Ran

Vivek Venugopal

Rui L Peterson

Arpit B Mehta

Volodymyr Borshch

Devon K Copeland

Aditya B Nayak

Steven N Hanna

Xiaoyong Fu

Sixian You

Reza Tafteh

Francesco LaRocca

Matthieu Charbonneau-Lefort

An electronic device including optical sensing with a concentric architecture and methods for operation thereof is disclosed. The concentric architecture can include light detector(s) arranged in a concentric manner around light emitter(s). In some examples, at least one light emitter can be located in the center of the device, and each light detector can be located the same separation distance from the light emitter. Each light detector can be arranged such that the separation distance from the centrally located light emitter can be greater than the separation distance from another light emitter. Examples of the disclosure further include a selective transparent layer overlaying the light detector(s). The selective transparent layer can include section(s) transparent to a first wavelength range and non-transparent to a second wavelength ranges. In some examples, the selective transparent layer can further include section(s) transparent to the second wavelength range.

Concentric architecture for optical sensing

An electronic display may include an ambient light sensor (ALS) located beneath an active area to sense ambient light above the active area. The ALS may have multiple response channels to perform fast sensing integration, which is synchronized with blanking periods of a pixel on the active area. An emission mask and a heat map may be generated for the ALS and used to generate a calibrated heat map for the ALS. The calibrated heat map of the ALS is used with display content to calculate a crosstalk compensation for the ALS.

System for ambient light sensing or compensation

This relates to an electronic device configured for optical sensing having shared windows and including light restriction designs. The light restriction designs can include one or more of optical layers, optical films, lenses, and window systems configured to reduce or eliminate crosstalk between optical components. A plurality of accepting sections and a plurality of blocking sections can be employed to selectively allow light having an angle of incidence within one or more acceptance viewing angles and block light with angles of incidence outside of the acceptance viewing angles. In some examples, the light restriction designs can include variations in optical and structural properties can allow the light restriction designs to have spatially varying acceptance angles. Variations in structural properties can include, but are not limited to, differences in widths, heights, and/or tilts of the accepting sections and/or blocking sections.

Light restriction designs in optical sensing applications having shared windows

An electronic device may have a housing. Input-output devices may be mounted in the housing. The input-output devices may include a display with an array of pixels configured to display images for a user. The electronic device may have an optical component formed under a transparent region in the housing. The transparent region may be associated with an opening in an opaque masking layer in an inactive area of the display or other portion of the electronic device. A diffuser may be formed between the optical component and the transparent region. The diffuser may have a polymer layer with embedded thin-film interference filter flakes configured to scatter light and to exhibit desired reflection and transmission spectral.

Electronic devices having optical diffusers for optical components

An electronic device can include a housing that includes an optically transparent component. First and second light emitters can be positioned in the internal volume defined by the housing. A light detector can be positioned in the internal volume and can be optically isolated from the first and second light emitters within the internal volume. An opaque material can be disposed on the optically transparent component and can be positioned to inhibit light emitted from the second light emitter from reaching the light detector and to allow light emitted from the first light emitter to reach the light detector.

Electronic optical sensing device

This relates to one or more integrated photodiodes on a back surface of a PPG device. The one or more integrated photodiodes can reduce the gap between one or more windows and the active area of the photodiode(s) to increase the PPG signal strength without affecting the depth of light penetration into skin tissue. In some examples, the photodiode stackup can contact the surface of the windows. In some examples, the photodiode stackups can exclude a separate substrate. In some examples, the photodiode stackup can be deposited on the inner surface of the windows opposite the outer surface of the device. In some examples, the photodiode stackup can be deposited on the back surface and/or outer surface of the device. In this manner, PPG sensors can be included in the device without the need for extra layers and measurement accuracy can be improved due to lower light loss.

Integrated photodiode

An electronic device such as a portable electronic device may include a single-shot alignment-free spectrometer with no moving parts. The spectrometer may include a diffractive member, such as a grating, an aperture, and an image sensor that generates data in response to incident light. The diffractive member may diffract the incident light based on its wavelength and angle of incidence, and the aperture may further encode the light. The data generated by the image sensor may be used by control circuitry in combination with correlations between spectrometer measurements and known light profiles to determine the wavelength and angle of incidence of the light. These correlations may be determined using a deep neural network. Control circuitry may adjust one or more settings of the electronic device based on the wavelength and angle of incidence, or may use the wavelength and angle of incidence to determine information regarding an external object.

Electronic devices with an alignment-free spectrometer

An electronic device may include sensors such as a visible-light image sensor for capturing images. The sensors may also include optical sensors that operate at other wavelengths. An infrared light sensor may be used to gather an infrared light spectrum of a target object. The infrared light sensor may have a beam steerer and other adjustable components such as adjustable lenses and adjustable polarizers. During operation, an infrared beam emitted by the infrared light sensor may be steered onto the target object using information from a captured visible-light image and/or other sensor data such as distance sensor data, orientation sensor data, three-dimensional image sensor data, and data from other sensors. Infrared spectra, visible-light camera images, and/or data from other sensors may be used in characterizing target objects so that notifications can be provided to a user and other actions taken.

Electronic devices with beam-steered infrared light sensing

An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels that display images for a user. The electronic device may have an ambient light sensor for gathering ambient light information. A subset of the pixels in the array of pixels may overlap the ambient light sensor so that ambient light passing through the subset of pixels may be measured. Each pixel may have an emission enable transistor coupled in series with a light-emitting diode. Control circuitry in the electronic device may disable the subset of pixels to reduce stray light during ambient light measurements while enabling remaining pixels in the array of pixels to display an image. Ambient light sensor circuitry may gather ambient light sensor measurements over one or more periods by using transfer transistors to transfer change from the photodetectors to charge storage capacitors formed from floating diffusions in a common substrate.

Electronic devices with ambient light sensors and emissive displays

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A transparent portion of the housing may serve as a display cover layer and may overlap an array of pixels in the display. The array of pixels may form an active area of the display for displaying images for a user. An ambient light sensor window may be formed in an inactive area of the display that does not overlap pixels. An ambient light sensor may be mounted in an interior region of the housing. A metal-coated light guide may have a first end aligned with the ambient light sensor window to receive ambient light from an exterior region surrounding the device and may have a second end at which the ambient light is provided to the ambient light sensor.

Electronic devices with light sensor waveguides

An electronic device may be provided with an ambient light sensor. The ambient light sensor may be a color ambient light sensor or a monochrome ambient light sensor. The electronic device may have a light-emitting component such as a display. During operation of the display, the display emits light. To reduce noise due to the emitted light while measuring ambient light, the ambient light sensor may have optical structures such as wave plates and polarizers. Theses optical structures may overlap light detectors. The optical structures may be configured to prevent ambient light from reaching a first of the light detectors while allowing ambient light to reach a second of the light detectors. The ambient light sensor may be configured to receive ambient light that has passed thorough an inactive area of a display or that has passed through a pixel array in an active area of a display.

Electronic device with polarized ambient light sensor

An assembly for a consumer product, such as a wristwatch or other wearable electronic device, can securely retain a cover member against a housing of the product. A retaining member from within the housing can engage and secure the cover member to provide a fluid barrier. The cover member can include a window or other components of a sensor device. The parts can be easily disassembled without causing permanent damage.

Retention system for electronic devices

Growing community of inventors

Campbell, CA, United States of America

Guocheng Shao