Molecular Imprints, Inc.

Magic Leap, Inc.

3m Innovative Properties Company

Canon Nanotechnologies, Inc.

The University of Texas System

Michael Nevin Miller

Vikramjit Singh

Frank Y Xu

Shuqiang Yang

Kang Luo

Michael Anthony Klug

Roy Matthew Patterson

Charles Scott Carden

Brian T Schowengerdt

Christophe Peroz

Gerard M Schmid

Pierre St Hilaire

Sidlgata V Sreenivasan

Byung-Jin Choi

Samarth Bhargava

Chulwoo Oh

Ravi Kumar Komanduri

Nicholas A Stacey

Robert D TeKolste

Kevin Messer

Dwayne L LaBrake

Victor Kai Liu

Niyaz Khusnatdinov

Michael P C Watts

David Carl Jurbergs

Naiyong Jing

Moses Mekala David

Mario Johannes Meissl

Eric C Browy

David C Koskenmaki

Mauro Melli

James Francis Brennan, Iii

Mohamed M Hilali

Jason A Schaefer

Fen Wan

Brian J Gates

Brian Kenneth Nelson

Kevin R Curtis

Robert Dale Tekolste

Edward Brian Fletcher

Sharad D Bhagat

Chieh Chang

Van Nguyen Truskett

Jie Sun

Christopher John Fleckenstein

Douglas J Resnick

Jeffrey Dean Schmulen

Michal Beau Dennison Vaughn

Satish Sadam

Matthew S Shafran

Ryan Christiansen

Pawan Kumar Nimmakayala

Xiaoming Lu

Bryon J Cronk

Marlon Edward Menezes

Liang Kai Wang

Xiaopei Deng

Ecron D Thompson

Mahadevan GanapathiSubramanian

Cynthia B Brooks

Zongxing Wang

Xiao Li

David James Lentz

Robert D Waid

Ling Li

Steven Y Yu

Haitao Huang

Gary A Shreve

Mahadevan Ganapathisubramanian

Mohammadreza Khorasaninejad

Se Hyun Ahn

Qizhen Xue

Gary Doyle

Joseph Michael Imhof

Kangkang Wang

Jeremy Lee Sevier

Brett William Best

Kevin Richard Curtis

Laura Anne Brown

Darren D Donaldson

Roy Patterson

Michael Klug

Michael PC Watts

Waveguides comprising materials with refractive index greater than or equal to 1.8 and methods of patterning waveguides are disclosed. Patterned waveguides comprising materials with refractive index greater than or equal to 1.8 can be incorporated in display devices, such as, for example wearable display devices to project virtual images to a viewer. A waveguide may be transparent and may comprise a substrate comprising a first material having a first refractive index greater than about 2.0. Diffractive features may be formed, on the substrate, of a second material having a second refractive index that is lower than the first refractive index. A third material may be disposed over the diffractive features and may have a third refractive index that is higher than the second refractive index.

Waveguides with high index materials and methods of fabrication thereof

Very high refractive index (n>2.2) lightguide substrates enable the production of 70° field of view eyepieces with all three color primaries in a single eyepiece layer. Disclosed herein are viewing optics assembly architectures that make use of such eyepieces to reduce size and cost, simplifying manufacturing and assembly, and better-accommodating novel microdisplay designs.

Very high index eyepiece substrate-based viewing optics assembly architectures

A display device comprises a waveguide configured to guide light in a lateral direction parallel to an output surface of the waveguide. The waveguide is further configured to outcouple the guided light through the output surface. The display device additionally comprises a broadband adaptive lens assembly configured to incouple and to diffract therethrough the outcoupled light from the waveguide. The broadband adaptive lens assembly comprises a first waveplate lens comprising a liquid crystal (LC) layer arranged such that the waveplate lens has birefringence (Δn) that varies in a radially outward direction from a central region of the first waveplate lens and configured to diffract the outcoupled light at a diffraction efficiency greater than 90% within a wavelength range including at least 450 nm to 630 nm. The broadband adaptive lens assembly is configured to be selectively switched between a plurality of states having different optical powers.

Broadband adaptive lens assembly for augmented reality display

An imprint lithography method of configuring an optical layer includes selecting one or more parameters of a nanolayer to be applied to a substrate for changing an effective refractive index of the substrate and imprinting the nanolayer on the substrate to change the effective refractive index of the substrate such that a relative amount of light transmittable through the substrate is changed by a selected amount.

Configuring optical layers in imprint lithography processes

Architectures are provided for selectively incoupling one or more streams of light from a multiplexed light stream into a waveguide. The multiplexed light stream can have light with different characteristics (e.g., different wavelengths and/or different polarizations). The waveguide can comprise in-coupling elements that can selectively couple one or more streams of light from the multiplexed light stream into the waveguide while transmitting one or more other streams of light from the multiplexed light stream.

Display system with optical elements for in-coupling multiplexed light streams

Systems and methods for managing multi-objective alignments in imprinting (e.g., single-sided or double-sided) are provided. An example system includes rollers for moving a template roll, a stage for holding a substrate, a dispenser for dispensing resist on the substrate, a light source for curing the resist to form an imprint on the substrate when a template of the template roll is pressed into the resist on the substrate, a first inspection system for registering a fiducial mark of the template to determine a template offset, a second inspection system for registering the imprint on the substrate to determine a wafer registration offset between a target location and an actual location of the imprint, and a controller for controlling to move the substrate with the resist below the template based on the template offset, and determine an overlay bias of the imprint on the substrate based on the wafer registration offset.

Managing multi-objective alignments for imprinting

Systems, apparatus, and methods for double-sided imprinting are provided. An example system includes first rollers for moving a first web including a first template having a first imprinting feature, second rollers for moving a second web including a second template having a second imprinting feature, dispensers for dispensing resist, a locating system for locating reference marks on the first and second webs for aligning the first and second templates, a light source for curing the resist, such that a cured first resist has a first imprinted feature corresponding to the first imprinting feature on one side of the substrate and a cured second resist has a second imprinted feature corresponding to the second imprinting feature on the other side of the substrate, and a moving system for feeding in the substrate between the first and second templates and unloading the double-imprinted substrate from the first and second webs.

Double-sided imprinting

Waveguides comprising materials with refractive index greater than or equal to 1.8 and methods of patterning waveguides are disclosed. Patterned waveguides comprising materials with refractive index greater than or equal to 1.8 can be incorporated in display devices, such as, for example wearable display devices to project virtual images to a viewer.

A display device includes a waveguide assembly comprising a waveguide configured to outcouple light out of a major surface of the waveguide to form an image in the eyes of a user. An adaptive lens assembly has a major surface facing the output surface and a waveplate lens and a switchable waveplate assembly. The switchable waveplate assembly includes quarter-wave plates on opposing sides of a switchable liquid crystal layer, and electrodes on the quarter-wave plates in the volume between the quarter-wave plates. The electrodes can selectively establish an electric field and may serve as an alignment structure for molecules of the liquid crystal layer. Portions of the adaptive lens assembly may be manufactured by roll-to-roll processing in which a substrate roll is unwound, and alignment layers and liquid crystal layers are formed on the substrate as it moves towards a second roller, to be wound on that second roller.

Augmented reality display having liquid crystal variable focus element and roll-to-roll method and apparatus for forming the same

In some embodiments, a head-mounted, near-eye display system comprises a stack of waveguides having integral spacers separating the waveguides. The waveguides may each include diffractive optical elements that are formed simultaneously with the spacers by imprinting. The spacers are disposed on one major surface of each of the waveguides and indentations are provided on an opposite major surface of each of the waveguides. The indentations are sized and positioned to align with the spacers, thereby forming a self-aligned stack of waveguides. Tops of the spacers may be provided with light scattering features, anti-reflective coatings, and/or light absorbing adhesive to prevent light leakage between the waveguides. As seen in a top-down view, the spacers may be elongated along the same axis as the diffractive optical elements. The waveguides may include structures (e.g., layers of light absorbing materials, rough surfaces, light out-coupling optical elements, and/or light trapping microstructures) along their edges to mitigate reflections and improve the display contrast.

Waveguides having integrated spacers, waveguides having edge absorbers, and methods for making the same

Methods of manufacturing a liquid crystal device including depositing a layer of liquid crystal material on a substrate and imprinting a pattern on the layer of liquid crystal material using an imprint template are disclosed. The liquid crystal material can be jet deposited. The imprint template can include surface relief features, Pancharatnam-Berry Phase Effect (PBPE) structures or diffractive structures. The liquid crystal device manufactured by the methods described herein can be used to manipulate light, such as for beam steering, wavefront shaping, separating wavelengths and/or polarizations, and combining different wavelengths and/or polarizations.

Virtual and augmented reality systems and methods

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Michael Nevin Miller