Corning Incorporated

Facebook Technologies, LLC

Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC

3m Innovative Properties Company

Konica Minolta Opto, Inc.

Oculus, Vr, LLC

Facebook Tehcnologies, LLC

Jacques Gollier

Ying Geng

Brian M Wheelwright

Yusufu Njoni Bamaxam Sulai

Fenglin Peng

Babak Amirsolaimani

Garrett Andrew Piech

Lu Lu

James Andrew West

Weichuan Gao

Andrew John Ouderkirk

Alexander Sohn

Robin Sharma

Mengfei Wang

Daniel Ohen Ricketts

Shandon Dee Hart

Wai Sze Tiffany Lam

Giuseppe Calafiore

Dragan Pikula

Michael Brian Webb

Daniel Aloysius Nolan

Qi Wu

Dmitri Vladislavovich Kuksenkov

Alexander Koshelev

Douglas Robert Lanman

Barry David Silverstein

Gang Li

Vikram Bhatia

Martin Hai Hu

Alan Thomas Stephens, Ii

Ying Zhang

Adam James Ellison

Scott Charles McEldowney

William James Miller

Timothy James Kiczenski

Matthew E Colburn

Yun-Han Lee

Junren Wang

Luis Alberto Zenteno

Lu Zhang

Kelvin Nguyen

Yijing Fu

Stephen James McNally

Dong Chen

Ellen Anne King

Nicholas Francis Borrelli

Nicholas Daniel Trail

Thierry Luc Alain Dannoux

Wanli Chi

Kurt Jenkins

Chung-En Zah

Mark Alejandro Quesada

Shizhe Shen

Wendell Porter Weeks

Maxwell Parsons

Marina Zannoli

Glenn E Kohnke

Yang Zhao

Brett Joseph Bryars

Daniel Guenther Greif

Garam Young

Linghui Rao

Ming-Jun Li

James Phillip Luther

Charlene Marie Smith

Gary Dean Sharp

Stephan Lvovich Logunov

Karl William Koch, Iii

David R Perek

Venkata Adiseshaiah Bhagavatula

Yuichi Atarashi

Marc Dudley Radcliffe

Michael L Steiner

Edward John Fewkes

Nobuyoshi Mori

Afsoon Jamali

Tanya Malhotra

Adrian Travis

William Thomas Blank

David L Weidman

Lan Hong Liu

Eric John Mozdy

Davide Domenico Fortusini

Shenping Li

Jeffery Alan DeMeritt

Cheonhong Kim

Jianru Shi

Joydeep Lahiri

Paul Francis Michaloski

Yang Yang

Renate Eva Klementine Landig

Daniel W Hennen

Thomas R Hoffend, Jr

Brett J Sitter

Norman Henry Fontaine

Changwon Jang

Anthony Glenn Frutos

Fumio Nagai

Zhimin Shi

Selso Luanava

An illuminator for illuminating a display panel includes a lightguide with an array of buried slanted bulk reflectors that out-couple portions of the light beam propagating in the lightguide through one of the lightguide surfaces. Polarization beam-splitting slanted surfaces may be used to provide polarized output. Such an illuminator may be used with a reflective display panel operating by polarization. The beam-splitting slanted surfaces operate as a polarizer, providing polarized illuminating light. The light reflected by the reflective panel may propagate back through the illuminator, and the polarization beam-splitting slanted surfaces may operate also as analyzer.

Geometrical waveguide illuminator and display based thereon

An illuminator for a display panel includes a slab of transparent material for propagating illuminating light between outer surfaces of the slab, an out-coupling grating supported by the slab for out-coupling portions of the illuminating light along one of the outer surfaces of the slab, and an amplitude and/or phase mask for forming an array of light spots from the out-coupled illuminating light portions downstream of the focusing element for illuminating pixels of the display panel. The array of light spots may be repeated at a distance from the mask due to Talbot effect. A beam redirecting element such as a tiltable reflector and/or a steering surface may be provided to shift the lateral location of the illuminating light spots.

Patterned light illuminator for a display panel

An optical assembly includes a Fresnel lens and a diffractive optical element. The Fresnel lens includes a high-refractive-index material having a refractive index greater than 1.9. The diffractive optical element is optically coupled with the Fresnel lens to compensate for chromatic aberration caused by the Fresnel lens. A method for imaging light with the optical assembly is also disclosed.

Optical assembly with high-refractive-index Fresnel lens and chromatic aberration corrector

According to examples, a phase plate may include a transparent substrate and a photopolymer layer attached to the transparent substrate. The photopolymer layer may adjust a backlight via a phase adjustment and focusing. The phase plate may focus a plurality of red, green, and blue components of the backlight onto respective red, green, and blue subpixels of a thin-film-transistor (TFT) layer deposited thereon. A distance between the photopolymer layer of the phase plate and the plurality of red, green, and blue subpixels of the thin-film-transistor (TFT) layer may be in a range from about 200 μm to about 500 μm. In some examples, the phase plate may be part of a liquid crystal display (LCD) apparatus along with a red, green, blue (RGB) laser to provide backlight; a grating light guide to transmit the backlight; and a liquid crystal display (LCD) layer on the thin-film-transistor (TFT) layer.

Phase plate and fabrication method for color-separated laser backlight in display systems

A lens assembly includes a first lens and a second lens. The first lens has a first lens surface and a second lens surface opposite to the first lens surface. The second lens surface includes a first plurality of Fresnel structures. The second lens, coupled to the first lens, has a third lens surface and a fourth lens surface opposite to the third lens surface. The third lens surface includes a second plurality of Fresnel structures. The third lens surface faces the first lens and the second lens surface faces the second lens. A headset that includes a display and the lens assembly is also disclosed. A method of transmitting, with the lens assembly, light from the display toward an image plane is also disclosed.

Shadow-matched Fresnel lens doublet for reduced optical artifacts

An optical assembly a substrate having a first surface and a second surface that is opposite to and substantially parallel with the first surface. The first surface has a first curved profile and the second surface has a second curved profile. The optical assembly also includes a beam splitter on the first surface and a reflector on the second surface. The optical assembly is configured to transmit image light received at the first surface in an optical path that includes reflection at each of the reflector and the beam splitter before the image light is output from the second surface. The optical assembly is also configured to transmit ambient light received at the first surface such that the second light is output from the second surface without undergoing reflection at either the reflector or the beam splitter. A method of transmitting light through the optical assembly is also disclosed.

Curved see-through pancake lens assembly and display device including the same

Various embodiments set forth high-resolution liquid crystal displays and components thereof. In some embodiments, light emitted by a high-resolution green color liquid crystal display is combined, via a combiner, with light emitted by at least one lower-resolution red and blue color liquid crystal display. The red and blue color display(s) may include a single display or two displays positioned on opposing sides of the combiner. The combiner may be a dichroic or polarization-based combiner. Combined light from the green color display and the red and blue color display(s) is passed through collimating optics, such as a pancake lens or a Fresnel lens, toward a viewer's eye.

High-resolution liquid crystal displays

A display device includes a light source, a spatial light modulator, and an optical assembly. The light source is configured to provide illumination light and the spatial light modulator positioned to receive the illumination light. The optical assembly includes an optical element and a curved reflector that is distinct and separate from the optical element. The curved reflector is disposed relative to the light source so that at least a portion of the illumination light is reflected by the curved reflector toward the optical element, is reflected by the optical element toward the curved reflector, and is transmitted through the curved reflector. A method performed by the display device is also disclosed.

Short distance illumination of a spatial light modulator using a curved reflector

A directional illuminator includes a light source, a pupil-replicating lightguide, and a tiltable reflector coupling the light source to the pupil-replicating lightguide. The exit beam angle of the light outputted by the pupil-replicating lightguide follows the in-coupling angle, and accordingly depends on the tilting angle of the tiltable reflector. The directional illuminator with steered light beam may be used to illuminate a display panel. Steering the illuminating light by the tiltable reflector enables one to steer the exit pupil of the display device to match the user's eye location(s).

Directional illuminator and display device with pupil steering by tiltable reflector

A display device includes an optical diffuser configured to, in response to receiving image light, output diffused image light having a same polarization as the image light. The optical diffuser is also configured to transmit ambient light. The display device also includes an optical assembly that includes a substrate, a reflector coupled to the substrate, and a beam splitter coupled to the substrate. The optical assembly is configured to transmit the diffused image light at a first optical power by reflecting the diffused image light at the reflector and at the beam splitter and to transmit the transmitted ambient light at a second optical power that is less than the first optical power without reflection at the reflector or the beam splitter. A method for transmitting light through the display device is also disclosed.

Display device with holographic diffuser display and see-through lens assembly

A pupil-replicating lightguide includes a slab of transparent material, a switchable out-coupling grating for out-coupling portions of image light to propagate towards an eyebox, and a switchable tracking grating for redirecting tracking light carrying an eye image towards an eye tracking camera. One of the two gratings may be turned ON while the other is turned OFF, in a time-sequential manner, allowing the combined use of the pupil-replicating lightguide for carrying image light and eye tracking light.

Eye tracking with switchable gratings

An optical device includes an optical waveguide and a plurality of reflective polarizers. The plurality of reflective polarizers include a first reflective polarizer and a second reflective polarizer disposed inside the optical waveguide so that the first reflective polarizer receives light propagating inside the optical waveguide, redirects a first portion of the light in a first direction, and transmits a second portion of the light in a second direction non-parallel to the first direction. The second reflective polarizer receives the second portion of the light from the first reflective polarizer, redirects a third portion of the light, and transmits a fourth portion of the light. A ratio between the first portion and the second portion of the light has a first value and a ratio between the third portion and the fourth portion of the light has a second value distinct from the first value.

Optical waveguide beam splitter with reflective polarizers for display

A see-through illuminator for a reflective display panel provides a better image contrast when the illuminator is configured to direct a leakage light beam exiting the lightguide from a side opposing the display panel to propagate non-parallel to an image light formed by reflection of an illuminating light beam from the display panel. An objective lens may concentrate the image and leakage light beams at different locations, enabling a user's eye placed at a location of the image light beam to see the projected image without interference from the leakage light beam.

Lightguide based illuminator for reflective display panel

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

The disclosure describes artificial reality (AR) systems and techniques that enable a change in focus of virtual image content without substantially changing magnification of real-world content. For example, an AR system includes a virtual image content output device, a first tunable lens on a real-world side of the virtual image content output device, a second tunable lens on an eye side of the virtual image content output device, and at least one compensating lens. The at least one compensating lens is configured to substantially eliminate magnification changes of real-world light between a real-world end of the optical system and an eye-side end of the optical system as a focal power of at least one of the first tunable lens or the second tunable lens changes.

Accommodation adjustable and magnification corrective optical system

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Jacques Gollier