Apple Inc.

Appe Inc.

Xiaokai Li

Zhibing Ge

Yuan Chen

Chaohao Wang

Aaron L Holsteen

Cheng Kai Chen

Young Cheol Yang

Shih-Chyuan Fan Jiang

Peter F Masschelein

Jun Li

Jin Yan

Kaikai Guo

Stephen Brian Lynch

Hopil Bae

Paolo Sacchetto

Sheng Zhang

Jiaying Wu

Donald R Monroe

Paul V Johnson

Yunhui Hou

Chengrui Le

Lingyu Hong

Sang Un Choi

Ziqian He

Yuechen Wu

Junhwan Lim

Yunseok Lee

Haiqing Xianyu

Dinesh C Mathew

Victor H Yin

Yang Li

Ming Xu

Li Zhang

Hyunwoo Nho

Bryan W Posner

Robert Y Cao

Jie Won Ryu

Marc Albrecht

Cheng-Ho Yu

Graham Butler Myhre

Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov

Szu-Hsien Lee

Yang Xu

Xianwei Zhao

Mitchell Herman Kline

Myungjoon Choi

Yingying Tang

Mookyung Son

Khadijeh Bayat

Daming Xu

Yue Jack Chu

Tobias Jung

Adria Fores Herranz

Giovanni Carbone

Rungrot Kitsomboonloha

Pei-En Chang

Vehbi Calayir

Avery P Yuen

Alex H Pai

Chia Hsuan Tai

Ahmad Rahmati

Heesang Suh

Jose Antonio Dominguez-Caballero

Johan L Piper

Suraj P Gorkhali

Anshi Liang

Amit Nayyar

Shih-Wei Chang

Guanjun Tan

Runyu Zhang

Tim H Cornelissen

Shin-Ying Lu

Tae Woon Cha

Ameya Y Joshi

Nachum M Kanovsky

Thanh Son Nguyen

Jie Li

Falu Yang

Li Tao

A system such as a vehicle, building, or electronic device system may have a support structure with one or more windows. The support structure and window may separate an interior region within the system from a surrounding exterior region. Control circuitry may receive input such as user input and may adjust an adjustable layer in the window based on the input. The adjustable layer may be an adjustable light transmission layer. The adjustable light transmission layer may have a polymer matrix layer with embedded guest-host liquid crystal cells. Each cell may have liquid crystal material and dichroic dye. The adjustable light transmission layer may be operated in a dark state to prevent light from passing through the window, a clear state in which the window passes light, and intermediate states that exhibit intermediate light transmission levels.

Systems with adjustable window transmission

A system such as a vehicle, building, or electronic device system may have a support structure with one or more windows. The support structure and window may separate an interior region within the system from a surrounding exterior region. Control circuitry may receive input such as user input and may adjust an adjustable layer in the window based on the input. The adjustable layer may have a polymer matrix layer with embedded cells. The cells may include intermixed guest-host liquid crystal cells and liquid crystal cells. The guest-host liquid crystal cells and liquid crystal cells may have different liquid crystal materials and/or different sizes that allow the guest-host liquid crystal cells and liquid crystal cells to electrically switch states at different respective threshold voltages. Based on the user input or other input the control circuitry can adjust a drive signal across the adjustable layer to change light transmittance and haze.

Systems with adjustable window transmission and haze

A display may include illumination optics, a ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon (fLCOS) panel, and a waveguide. The illumination optics may produce illumination that is modulated by the fLCOS panel to produce image light. The waveguide may direct the image light towards an eye box. The fLCOS panel may include a ferroelectric liquid crystal (fLC) layer and a backplane. In order to maximize the reflectance of the fLCOS panel and thus the optical performance of the display, the backplane may be a silver backplane or a dielectric mirror backplane. In addition, the backplane may have a cell gap that is equal to a wavelength divided by four times the birefringence of the fLC layer. In order to further optimize the optical performance of the display module, the wavelength used in determining the cell gap may be a green wavelength between 500 nm and 565 nm.

Optical systems having fLCOS display panels

In an embodiment, an electronic device includes a display and processing circuitry. The display includes a plurality of pixels arranged in a plurality of rows, wherein a first grouping of the plurality of rows displays image content during a first portion of an image frame, and wherein a second grouping of the plurality of rows displays image content during a second portion of the image frame. The processing circuitry is operatively coupled to the display and determines a velocity associated with the image content displayed by the first grouping of the plurality of rows moving across the display and adjusts a position of the image content displayed by the second grouping of the plurality of rows during the second portion of the image frame.

Motion corrected interleaving

A display may include illumination optics, a ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon (fLCOS) panel, and a waveguide. The illumination optics may include a red, green, and blue light sources. The fLCOS panel may produce image light by modulating a series of image frames onto illumination light. Control circuitry may control the illumination optics to produce the illumination light for each image frame in the series of image frames according to a green-heavy illumination sequence that includes first, second, and third time periods. The green light source may be active during each of the first, second, and third time periods. This may allow the green light source to be driven with a lower current density than the other light sources without significantly reducing image quality at an eye box. The lower current density may match the peak efficiency of the green light source, thereby minimizing power consumption by the display.

Optical systems with green-heavy illumination sequences for fLCOS display panels

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 such as a head-mounted device may have a display that produces a display image. The head-mounted device may have an optical system that merges real-world images from real-world objects with display images. The optical system provides the real-world images and display images to an eye box for viewing by a user. The optical system may use time interleaving techniques and/or polarization effects to merge real-world and display images. Switchable devices such as polarization switches and tunable lenses may be controlled in synchronization with frames of display images. Geometrical phase lenses may be used that exhibit different lens powers to different polarizations of light.

Display system with time interleaving

A display may include illumination optics, a ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon (fLCOS) panel, and a waveguide. The display may include a temperature sensor that gathers temperature sensor data. Control circuitry may select a non-square wave drive voltage waveform based on the gathered temperature sensor data and/or based on frame history information for the fLCOS display panel. The control circuitry may control the fLCOS panel to produce image light by driving the fLCOS panel using the selected non-square wave drive voltage waveform. The non-square wave drive voltage waveform may be an overdrive waveform or an underdrive waveform. This may serve to optimize the reflectance of the fLCOS display panel and thus the optical performance of the display module regardless of operating temperature and frame history.

Optical systems having overdriven fLCOS display panels

A display may include illumination optics, a ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon (fLCOS) panel, and a waveguide. A twisted nematic cell may be optically interposed between the fLCOS panel and the waveguide. A birefringent crystal may be optically interposed between the cell and the waveguide. The cell may have a first state in which the cell transmits the image light with a first polarization and a second state in which the cell transmits the image light with a second polarization. The crystal may transmit the image light within spatially offset beams based on polarization. In another arrangement, a quarter waveplate may be optically interposed between the cell and the waveguide and a geometric phase grating may be optically interposed between the quarter waveplate and the waveguide. Control circuitry may toggle the cell between the first and second states to maximize the effective resolution of images at an eye box.

Optical systems with pixel shifting structures

An electronic device may have a display with an array of display pixels. To increase the efficiency of the display, the display may also include an array of microlenses. Each microlens may overlap and focus light from a respective pixel. Pixels for one of the colors of light may have a high aspect ratio. These pixels may be covered by two microlenses or a single cylindrical microlens. The microlens dimensions may be tuned to mitigate non-uniformities in the brightness profiles of the pixels. The microlens edges may be laterally shifted towards or away from the center of the light-emitting areas to either reduce or increase the focusing power of the microlens. The microlenses and color filter elements in each pixel may also be shifted to account for the chief ray angle of the display.

Electronic device displays having microlenses

Display systems with geometrical phase lenses

Increasing resolution of liquid crystal displays may result in small distances between adjacent liquid crystal display pixels. This tight pixel spacing may reduce transmission through the liquid crystal display pixels and may result in cross-talk between the liquid crystal display pixels. To increase transmission and, correspondingly, display efficiency, a reflective layer may be included in the liquid crystal display. The reflective layer recycles backlight that may otherwise be absorbed, improving transmittance and efficiency. To reduce color shift and color mixing caused by cross-talk, the pixels may have their pixel electrodes arranged in a zigzag layout. Each pixel electrode may have a height that is less than or equal to the total height of the pixel divided by two. The pixel electrodes in a given row are also alternatingly coupled to first and second gate lines. This zigzag layout results in an increased distance between adjacent pixel electrodes, mitigating pixel cross-talk.

Pixel layouts for electronic device displays

A system may have windows. The window may have first and second window layers and a layer of material such as guest-host liquid crystal material between the first and second window layers. Electrodes on the window layers may be used to apply electric fields to the guest-host liquid crystal material to adjust the light transmission properties of the window. To ensure that a desired gap between the first and second window layers is maintained, spacers may be formed between the first and second window layers. The spacers may include key-and-lock spacers that have interlocking portions located, respectively, on the first and second window layers. Spacers such as photoresist posts can be attached using adhesive. Hybrid arrangements may also be used in which key-and-lock spacer structures are attached using adhesive bonds.

Adjustable windows

Embodiments presented herein relate to reducing visual artifacts on an electronic display caused by an intra-frame pause. To do so, the intra-frame pause may be divided into smaller intra-frame pause segments. The intra-frame pause segments may be applied to the display during different image frames and/or at different locations on the electronic display. For example, each intra-frame pause segment may be applied to a different location on the electronic display. In some embodiments, multiple intra-frame pause segments may be applied during a single image frame. In some embodiments, the intra-frame pause segments may be applied to various image frames and at various location on the electronic display according to a pattern. To reduce band flickering that may be caused by the different locations of the intra-frame pause segments, an emission duty of one or more rows of pixels of the display may be adjusted.

Mitigation of tearing from intra-frame pause

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Xiaokai Li