Apple Inc.

Applied Materials, Inc.

Xianwei Zhao

Tingjun Xu

Sunggu Kang

Avery P Yuen

Ove Lyngnes

Xingxing Cai

Tianbo Sun

John Z Zhong

Qiliang Xu

Matthew S Rogers

Alex Joseph Lehmann

Serhan O Isikman

Ligang Wang

Zhenbin Ge

Soyoung Kim

Guocheng Shao

Khadijeh Bayat

Ming Yu

Senem E Emgin

Xiaonan Wen

Yoshitaka Matsui

Terrence Lee Van Ausdall

Xiaofan Niu

Wookyung Bae

Jun Xie

Yuxi Zhao

Shan Wu

Alan Kleiman-Schwarsctein

Zheng Gao

Yang Li

Chaohao Wang

James R Wilson

Zhibing Ge

Naoto Matsuyuki

Martin Melcher

Tong Chen

Alan A Ritchie

Hyungryul J Choi

Prashanth S Holenarsipur

Mark T Winkler

Michael K McCord

Lei Yu

Xiaokai Li

Dong Zheng

Marta M Giachino

Michael Vosgueritchian

Yifei Wang

Ryan Hanson

Christopher M Dodson

Alex H Pai

Rui L Peterson

Daisuke Nozu

Runyu Zhang

Stephen C Cool

Xiaoyong Fu

Yukinori Asakawa

Shigeto Kobori

Zhujun Shi

Naomi Sugawara

Di Fan

An electronic device may have a display system. The display system may include a waveguide, an input coupler, and a surface relief grating (SRG) structure. There are various ways to form a SRG structure. In one example, nanoimprinting may be performed on a low-index resin to form a mold for a subsequent deposition of high-index material. The high-index material conforms to the mold to form ridges for the SRG structure. A reusable mold may be formed with a plurality of ridges on a flexible substrate and coated by an anti-stick coating. The reusable mold may be coated with a high-index material that is attached to a glass substrate and cured to form a wafer-level SRG structure with high-index ridges on a glass substrate. The wafer-level SRG structure is subsequently diced. SRG structures may also be formed that include varying trough thicknesses, varying ridge thicknesses, and/or a sloped substrate.

Methods of forming holographic gratings for optical systems

An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have a display that displays computer-generated content for a user. The head-mounted device may have an optical system that directs the computer-generated content towards eye boxes for viewing by a user. The optical system may include a spatially addressable adjustable optical component. The adjustable optical component may have first and second electrodes and an electrically adjustable material between the first and second electrodes. The electrically adjustable material may include a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide that includes a pattern of segmented trenches configured to provide the transparent conductive material with electrical anisotropy. Contacts may be coupled to the transparent conductive material. Control circuitry can adjust the electrically adjustable material to form a spatially addressable light modulator or adjustable lens.

Display system with localized optical adjustments

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 includes an input device. The input device has an input/output module below or within a cover defining an input surface. The input/output module detects touch and/or force inputs on the input surface, and provides haptic feedback to the cover. In some instances, a haptic device is integrally formed with a wall or structural element of a housing or enclosure of the electronic device.

Electronic device having a touch sensor, force sensor, and haptic actuator in an integrated module

An electronic device may have transparent housing structures such as walls formed of glass or sapphire. Housing structures such as transparent housing structures may have a colored coating. The colored coating may include an absorptive layer and a metal layer. The coating may exhibit a color that can be adjusted by adjusting the thickness of the thin absorptive layer. A colored layer such as a layer of colored polymer may be incorporated into the colored coating to further adjust the color of the coating. The colored coating may be formed on an inner or outer housing structure surface. The surface may have a texture to provide the coating with a matte appearance. When formed on an outer surface, a diamond-like carbon layer may protect the colored coating. When formed on an inner surface, a passivation layer may be used to prevent oxidation of the metal layer.

Colored coatings for electronic devices

An electronic device includes a housing and a display. The housing defines an interior cavity and includes an optically-transmissive housing component. The display is disposed in the interior cavity and is viewable through the optically-transmissive housing component. An optoelectronic component is disposed in the interior cavity. An optical fiber extends between a first end positioned adjacent the optoelectronic component and a second end positioned adjacent the optically-transmissive housing component. The optical fiber defines a non-linear optical path between the first end and the second end. At least a portion of the optical fiber is laterally offset from a lateral edge of the display.

Display-adjacent optical emission or reception using optical fibers

Finger-wearable input assemblies for controlling an electronic device and methods for using finger-wearable input assemblies for controlling an electronic device are provided.

Finger-wearable input assembly for controlling an electronic device

A transparent high-conductivity layer for providing electrostatic feedback to a user of an electronic device. The transparent high-conductivity layer is positioned over a capacitive input sensor and has a resistivity sufficiently high to prevent interference with the capacitive input sensor. As one example, the transparent high-conductivity layer can be formed from a layer of geometrically-separated regions of high-conductivity material. The average distance between geometrically-separated regions can substantially define the resistivity of the transparent high-conductivity layer.

Transparent high-resistivity layer for electrostatic friction modulation over a capacitive input sensor

An electronic input device is disclosed. The input device includes an adaptive input surface allowing for controllably definable input regions and frictional feedback indicating a location of the input regions. The input device generates an electrostatic charge at the adaptive input surface to provide frictional feedback. The input device may be connectable to or integrated with another electronic computing device.

Input device with tactile feedback

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 a color ambient light sensor. The color ambient light sensor may be used to measure an ambient light spectrum over a wavelength range of interest. Control circuitry in the electronic device can take actions based on the measured ambient light spectrum such as adjusting the brightness and color cast of content on a display. A display may have a display cover layer. The color ambient light sensor can be mounted under the display cover layer and may receive ambient light through the display cover layer. The color ambient light sensor may have a tunable wavelength filter such as an electrically adjustable Fabry-Perot resonator. A light collimator may be interposed between the display cover layer and the Fabry-Perot resonator to collimate ambient light that is passed to the Fabry-Perot resonator. A light detector measures the light passing through the Fabry-Perot resonator.

Color ambient light sensor with tunable filter

An electronic device may have transparent members such as display cover layers and camera windows. A transparent member such as a sapphire member may be provided with an antireflection coating. The antireflection coating may have a stack of dielectric thin-film interference filter layers that form a thin-film interference filter that suppresses visible light reflections. The stack of dielectric thin-film interference filter layers may have thicknesses and materials that provide the thin-film interference filter and coating with low light reflection properties while enhancing scratch resistance. An adhesion layer may be used to help adhere the stack of thin-film interference filter layer to the transparent member. An antismudge coating such as a fluoropolymer coating may be used to reduce smudging. Graded layers and layers with elevated hardness values may be used in the coating.

Electronic devices having scratch-resistant antireflection coatings

An electronic device may be provided with a display mounted in a housing. The display may have an array of pixels that form an active area and may have an inactive area that runs along an edge of the active area. An opaque layer may be formed on an inner surface of a display cover layer in the inactive area of the display or may be formed on another transparent layer in the electronic device. An ambient light sensor window may be formed from the opening and may be aligned with color ambient light sensor. The ambient light sensor may have an integrated circuit with an array of photodetectors and may have a color filter layer forming a corresponding array of thin-film interference color filters with different respective pass bands. The color filter layer may have a shared dielectric stack and multiple color-filter-specific dielectric stacks on the shared dielectric stack.

Electronic devices having light sensors with thin-film filters

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Xianwei Zhao