Apple Inc.

Peng Zhao

David D Dashevsky

Xin Li

Dianbo Guo

Ruonan Yang

Damon R Lemmon

Dong Zheng

Anand K Chamakura

Stephen N Sweet

Mieczyslaw M Dabrowski

An input component for an electronic device configured to detect rotational and/or translational movement of a surface. In an implementation, the input component includes a movable input member with a shaft with a pattern disposed on its surface. A light-emitting element is positioned to direct light towards this pattern, a portion of which is thereafter reflected back. An imaging system is situated to capture the reflected light. The imaging system includes an array of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) operating in Geiger mode. This array is coupled with a counter circuit, which increments one or more values based on the SPAD array output. These values and corresponding SPAD locations within the array can be correlated to the spatial phase of the reflected light, which in turn can be converted to rotational or axial displacement of the movable input member.

Single photon avalanche diodes for rotational and translational input detection

An electronic device is described. The electronic device may include a housing, a rotatable crown, and a self-mixing interferometry (SMI) sensor positioned within the housing. The rotatable crown may include an array of retroreflective surface features that reflect incident light back to a light source. Each retroreflective surface feature of the array of retroreflective surface features may be formed as a corner-cube with three perpendicular faces. The SMI sensor or associated processing electronics may compare originally emitted light with reflected light to identify a movement or distance of the rotatable crown with respect to the SMI sensor.

Cylindrical retroreflector array for rotation tracking

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Peng Zhao