Apple Inc.

Wenrui Cai

Tong Chen

Mark T Winkler

Mehmet Mutlu

Omid Momtahan

Tsu-Hui Lin

Orit A Shamir

Giovanni Gozzini

Prashanth S Holenarsipur

Michael K McCord

Chau H Nguyen

Xiao Xiang

Yun Yu Wang

Rui Liu

Peter F Holland

Warren S Rieutort-Louis

Mahesh B Chappalli

Dong Zheng

Praveesh Chandran

Yuchi Che

Yingying Tang

Jenny Hu

Meng-Huan Ho

Weiping Li

Christopher Edward Glazowski

Yuta Kuboyama

James Joseph Dudley

Graeme M Williams

Fan Gui

Stephen N Sweet

Chaohao Wang

Xiaoyang Zhang

Kyounghwan Kim

Ran Tu

Albert P Heberle

Feng Wen

Hei Kam

Ruonan Yang

Ximeng Guan

Clint M Perlaki

David R Manly

Hyun H Boo

Kevin J Choboter

Lu Yan

Na Zhu

Disclosed herein are electronic devices having touch input surfaces. A user's touch input or press on the touch input surface is detected using a set of lasers, such as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) that emit beams of light toward the touch input surface. The user's touch causes changes in the self-mixing interference within the VCSEL of the emitted light with reflected light, such as from the touch input surface. Deflection and movement (e.g., drag motion) of the user's touch is determined from detected changes in the VCSELs' operation due to the self-mixing interference.

Self-mixing interference based sensors for characterizing touch input

A light emitter that operates through a display may cause display artifacts, even when the light emitter operates using non-visible wavelengths. Display artifacts caused by a light emitter that operates through a display may be referred to as emitter artifacts. To mitigate emitter artifacts, operating conditions for a display frame may be used to determine an optimal firing time for the light emitter during that display frame. The operating conditions used to determine the optimal firing time may include emitter operating conditions, display content statistics, display brightness, temperature, and refresh rate. Operating conditions from one or more previous frames may be stored in a frame buffer and may be used to help determine the optimal firing time for the light emitter during a display frame. Pixel values for the display may be modified to mitigate emitter artifacts.

Mitigating artifacts caused by an under-display light emitter

An electronic device includes an electromagnetic radiation source having an axis, a set of optics disposed about the axis, a reflector disposed about the axis non-symmetrically, and a controller configured to operate the electromagnetic radiation source while controlling a beam steering orientation (e.g., rotation) of the reflector. The reflector is disposed to reflect electromagnetic radiation emitted by the electromagnetic radiation source. The set of optics is disposed to shape electromagnetic radiation emitted by the electromagnetic radiation source and direct electromagnetic radiation received from the reflector into a panoramic field of view about the axis.

Optical tracking system

In some embodiments, a display stack includes a set of light-emitting elements, and a display backplane that includes a set of conductors and is electrically coupled to the set of light-emitting elements. A conductor in the set of conductors has a length, and a curved edge extending along at least a portion of the length. In some embodiments, a display stack includes a set of light-emitting elements; a set of transistors, electrically coupled to the set of light-emitting elements; and a set of conductors, electrically coupled to the set of transistors. The set of transistors may be electrically coupled to the set of conductors at a set of conductive pads. A plurality of conductive pads in the set of conductive pads is coupled to a single conductor in the set of conductors. The single conductor approaches different conductive pads in the plurality of conductive pads at different angles.

Display stack topologies for under-display optical transceivers

Configurations for display stacks of an electronic device and methods for mitigating crosstalk are disclosed. The display stack may include a transceiver module, which may be located under or behind the display. The transceiver module may include a transmitter module, which may provide polarized light from the transmitter that may suppress module crosstalk. The transceiver module also may include a receiver module, which may include polarization control elements and an analyzer for differentiating between a target signal and a crosstalk signal. The polarization control on both the transmitter module and receiver module sides may suppress the crosstalk signals, which may be due to the reflections between and within the elements of the display stack and resulting from positioning the transceiver module behind the display.

Behind display polarized optical transceiver

An optical sensing system includes a transmitter side and a receiver side, and is configured to be positioned below a display of an electronic device. The transmitter side includes a light emitter, a temperature sensor, and a photodiode. The receiver side includes a photodiode and a temperature sensor. The optical sensing system includes an application-specific integrated circuit that leverages the temperature sensors, the photodiodes, and one or more signal filters such as a high-pass filter to perform multiple field calibrations of the optical sensing system, thereby improving accuracy and precision thereof.

Self-calibrating optical transceiver system with reduced crosstalk sensitivity for through-display proximity sensing

A device includes a display stack and an optical receiver. The display stack includes a set of opaque elements defining a translucent aperture. The translucent aperture extends through the display stack. The optical receiver is spaced apart from and behind a back surface of the display stack. At least one micro-optic element is formed on the back surface of the display stack, between the display stack and the optical receiver. The at least one micro-optic element includes a micro-optic element having a focal point located within the translucent aperture. The optical receiver is configured to receive light through the translucent aperture and the at least one micro-optic element.

Through-display optical transmission, reception, or sensing through micro-optic elements

An electronic device may have optical sensors. Control circuitry may use sensor measurements in controlling adjustable components and taking other actions. The optical sensors may be self-mixing sensors such as incoherent self-mixing sensors. One or more sensors may be used in gathering sensor measurements. In configurations in which an electronic device contain multiple self-mixing sensors, multi-wavelength measurements can be gathered using incoherent light sources in the sensors that operate a set of different wavelengths. The light source of each incoherent self-mixing sensor may be a superluminescent light-emitting diode, a resonant cavity light-emitting diode, or other amplified or non-amplified spontaneous emission source. Optical systems such as lenses in a housing for an electronic device may be aligned with the self-mixing sensors. Self-mixing sensors may serve as proximity sensors, sensors for detecting touch input, sensors for measuring spectrums associated with targets of unknown materials, displacement sensors, or other sensors.

Self-mixing optical proximity sensors for electronic devices

Aspects of the subject technology relate to particulate matter sensors for electronic devices. A particulate matter sensor may include three lasers, three total-internal-reflection lenses, and three detectors for detecting changes in the operation of the three lasers due to the principles of self-mixing interferometry. The three total-internal-reflection lenses may use internally reflective surfaces to tilt the three beams into three corresponding directions that form an orthogonal basis in the three dimensional space, so that a gas flow speed can be determined while maintaining a small, modular form factor for implementation of the sensor in portable electronic devices.

Particulate matter sensors for portable electronic devices

A light-emitting device includes a semiconductor substrate, a surface-emitting semiconductor light source on the semiconductor substrate, a monolithic first dielectric, and a second dielectric. The monolithic first dielectric is transparent to light emitted by the light source and includes first and second micro-lenses adjacent an aperture of the light source and having axes parallel to and offset from an axis of a beam of light emitted by the light source, and a saddle-shaped lens over the aperture of the light source. The saddle-shaped lens connects the first and second micro-lenses and reshapes the beam of light emitted by the light source to have a high aspect ratio. The second dielectric is transparent to light emitted by the light source and encapsulates a light emission surface of the saddle-shaped lens. The second dielectric has a higher refractive index than the monolithic first dielectric.

Wafer-level high aspect ratio beam shaping

Techniques are disclosed by which electronic devices that include line-of-sight optical communication systems may become optically aware of other electronic devices and perform optical communication handshakes with other devices. An electronic device may use a motion sensor to record its posing when it determines, during the performance of an optical communication handshake, that it is pointed at the electronic device with which it is performing the optical communication handshake (or that the other electronic device is within a field of view of the electronic device). A recorded device posing, in combination with optical communications and motion sensor data, may also be used to map another device's location and enable a user of an electronic device to pan away from and break optical communication with the other device, then easily return to a recorded posing that enables a continuation of optical communications with the other device.

Device awareness in line-of-sight optical communication systems

An electronic device may include an optical proximity sensor system. The optical proximity sensor system may be a transreflective optical proximity sensor system having a light emitter that emits light into a light-emitting region and a light detector that detects light in a light-detecting region. Control circuitry in the device can use the transreflective optical proximity sensor system to detect objects in an object detection region formed where the light-emitting region and light-detecting region overlap. The electronic device may be a pair of headphones in which housing structures such as housing walls define ear cup cavities. Speakers may be provided in the ear cups of the headphones to provide sound to the ear cup cavities. The transreflective optical proximity sensor system can detect the presence of a user's ear in an ear cup cavity.

Electronic device having transreflective optical sensors

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Wenrui Cai