Apple Inc.

Zhibing Ge

Cheng Kai Chen

Yuan Chen

Ming Xu

Xiaokai Li

Shih-Chyuan Fan Jiang

Shih Chang Chang

Chaohao Wang

Shawn Robert Gettemy

Hopil Bae

John Z Zhong

Chia Hsuan Tai

Jun Qi

Wei Hsin Yao

Paolo Sacchetto

Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov

Hossein Nemati

Hyungryul J Choi

Young Cheol Yang

Young-Bae Park

Aaron L Holsteen

Wei Chen

Abbas Jamshidi Roudbari

Jiaying Wu

Cheng-Ho Yu

Peter F Masschelein

Khadijeh Bayat

Dinesh C Mathew

Victor H Yin

Marduke Yousefpor

Marc Albrecht

Sandro Hermann Pintz

Young Bae Park

Christopher P Tann

Shih-Chang Chang

David Andrew Doyle

Paul V Johnson

Adria Fores Herranz

Shang-Chih Lin

Stephen Brian Lynch

Christiaan A Ligtenberg

Ion Bita

Donald R Monroe

Lynn Richard Youngs

Graham Butler Myhre

Fenghua Zheng

David S Zalatimo

Dmitry S Sizov

Ming-Chin Hung

Lai Wang

Chengrui Le

Avery P Yuen

Xiaobin Xin

Jun Jiang

Andreas Bibl

Yang Li

Chun-Yao Huang

Mohammad Yeke Yazdandoost

Kingsuk Brahma

Bryan W Posner

Robert Y Cao

Jie Won Ryu

Ibuki Kamei

Jonathan S Steckel

Jun Li

Mingxia Gu

Ligang Wang

Joshua G Wurzel

Kyung Wook Kim

Szu-Hsien Lee

Lu Zhang

Jean-Jacques P Drolet

Taesung Kim

James E C Brown

Xianwei Zhao

Yongman Lee

Se Baek Oh

Ilie Garbacea

Howard H Tang

Abbas Jamshidi-Roudbari

Francesco Aieta

Mookyung Son

Xinyu Zhu

Hiroshi Osawa

Giovanni Carbone

Daming Xu

Hao Nan

Ove Lyngnes

Christopher L Boitnott

Bennett S Wilburn

Harsha Shirahatti

Alex H Pai

Meizi Jiao

Michael Slootsky

Byron R Cocilovo

Mehmet N Agaoglu

Brian H Thornton

Jin Yan

Heesang Suh

Jose Antonio Dominguez-Caballero

A display may include a waveguide, an input coupler having a first surface relief grating (SRG) in a substrate on the waveguide, a cross-coupler having a second SRG in the substrate, and an output coupler having a third SRG in the substrate. The display may direct light to an eye box. A capping layer may be disposed over the substrate. An anti-reflective coating may be disposed over the capping layer. Microstructures may be disposed in non-SRG regions of the substrate and may be non-diffractive at visible wavelengths. The microstructures may include grooves and may have a similar filling factor to the SRGs. This may cause portions of the capping layer over the microstructures to sink into the grooves, thereby providing the capping layer with a relatively uniform thickness across a lateral area of the waveguide, without the microstructures producing visible artifacts or interacting with the light.

Display devices having grating substrates with sub-wavelength patterns

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 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

Electrical shield line systems are provided for openings in common electrodes near data lines of display and touch screens. Some displays, including touch screens, can include multiple common electrodes (Vcom) that can have openings between individual Vcoms. Some display screens can have an open slit between two adjacent edges of Vcom. Openings in Vcom can allow an electric field to extend from a data line through the Vcom layer. A shield can be disposed over the Vcom opening to help reduce or eliminate an electric field from affecting a pixel material, such as liquid crystal. The shield can be connected to a potential such that electric field is generated substantially between the shield and the data line to reduce or eliminate electric fields reaching the liquid crystal.

Display screen shield line system

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

A display may have display layers that form an array of pixels. An angle-of-view adjustment layer may overlap the display layers. The angle-of-view adjustment layer may include an array of adjustable light blocking structures formed from electrochromic material. The electrochromic material may be interposed between first and second electrode layers. When it is desired to operate the display in a private viewing mode, control circuitry may apply a current to the first and second electrodes that causes the electrochromic material to become more opaque, thereby restricting the angle of view of the display. When it is desired to operate the display in a public viewing mode, control circuitry may apply a current to the first and second electrodes that causes the electrochromic material to become more transparent, thereby opening up the angle of view of the display.

Displays with adjustable angles of view

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

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

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Zhibing Ge