Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC

Zhimin Shi

Giuseppe Calafiore

James Ronald Bonar

Wanli Chi

Fenglin Peng

Maxwell Parsons

Afsoon Jamali

Gareth John Valentine

Changwon Jang

Andrew John Ouderkirk

Babak Amirsolaimani

Tanya Malhotra

Renate Eva Klementine Landig

Yang Yang

Maik Andre Scheller

Yongdan Hu

Daniel Guenther Greif

Sihui He

Xiayu Feng

Nicholas John Diorio, Jr

Sho Nakahara

Xi Wu

Keith Patterson

Zhujun Shi

Jacques Gollier

Ying Geng

Sandro Hermann Pintz

Yijing Fu

Arman Boromand

Chloe Astrid Marie Fabien

Jian Xu

Yuge Huang

Anurag Tyagi

Amit Bhowmick

Yun Wang

Eric Stratton

Jacques Gollier, Jr

Edward Buckley

Ehsan Ordouie

A switchable grating may be used to redirect illuminating light for illuminating a user's eye in an eye tracking system, to facilitate the determination of eye position and/or orientation. The eye tracking system may be used in a near-eye display. An eye tracking camera obtains an eye image, and a controller performs an initial determination of the eye position. The controller may switch the switchable grating to direct the illuminating light beam onto the eye, for a better position and/or eye orientation determination.

Eye tracking with switchable gratings

The disclosed system may include at least one gradient-index liquid crystal lens. The system may include a selection module that selects a viewing angle. The system may also include an adjustment module that dynamically adjusts a phase reset property of the gradient-index liquid crystal lens in response to the selected viewing angle. Various other devices, systems, and methods are also disclosed.

Gradient-index liquid crystal lenses with adjustable flyback regions

A visible light source includes a substrate, a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser including an active semiconductor region configured to emit infrared light and a first reflector configured to reflect the infrared light emitted by the active semiconductor region, a second reflector configured to reflect the infrared light and form a vertical cavity for the infrared light with the first reflector, and one or more micro-resonators configured to receive the infrared light and generate visible light in one or more colors using the infrared light through optical parametric oscillation. The visible light source also includes one or more output couplers configured to couple the visible light in one or more colors from the one or more micro-resonators into free space or into a photonic integrated circuit.

Multi-color visible light source including integrated VCSELs and integrated photonic cavities

A device includes a primary electrode, a secondary electrode overlapping at least a portion of the primary electrode, and a liquid crystal layer disposed between the primary electrode and the secondary electrode, where the primary electrode has a spatially variable electrical resistance.

GRIN LC lens design with variable resistance electrode

A visible light source includes a substrate, a first reflector and a second reflector configured to reflect infrared light and arranged vertically to form a vertical cavity on the substrate, an active region in the vertical cavity and configured to emit infrared light, a micro-resonator on the substrate and configured to receive the infrared light emitted by the active region and generate visible light through optical parametric oscillation, and an output coupler configured to couple the visible light generated in the micro-resonator out of the micro-resonator.

Visible light source including integrated VCSELs and integrated photonic cavities

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a high performance backlight device with photonic integrated circuits. The backlight device includes a light source assembly, a multi-mode slab waveguide, and an out-coupling assembly. The light source assembly includes one or more light sources that generate light in accordance with emission instructions, and a de-speckling mechanism that conditions the generated light to mitigate speckle. The multi-mode slab waveguide in-couples the conditioned light and expands the in-coupled conditioned light in two dimensions to form a homogenous area of conditioned light within a region of the multi-mode slab waveguide. The out-coupling assembly out-couples the conditioned light from the region in a direction normal to the two dimensions, wherein a light modulation layer forms an image from the out-coupled conditioned light.

High performance backlight device using photonic integrated circuits

In some examples, an apparatus may include a backlight unit (BLU) including an electronic integrated circuit layer, a photonic integrated circuit layer, a color conversion module, and a display interface layer. In some examples, a BLU may include at least one laser or may be configured to receive laser light from at least one external laser source. Laser light may be transmitted towards a portion of the display interface layer using the photonic integrated circuit. Color conversion modules may be used to convert the laser light into one or more desired colors. Example apparatus may be used in head-mounted devices such as augmented reality and/or virtual reality devices. Other devices, methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Display backplanes with integrated electronics, photonics and color conversion components

According to examples, a tunable visible light source may include a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide and a control mechanism to optimize the phase-matching of the PPLN waveguide in response to an input signal with a varied wavelength. The control mechanism may include an electro-optic (EO) tuning mechanism, a microheater-based thermo-optic (TO) control mechanism, and/or an acousto-optic (AO) control mechanism. The control mechanisms may, respectively, generate an electric field, heat, or an acoustic wave to affect a change in refractive index of the PPLN waveguide and thereby optimize the conversion efficiency to maximize the output power of the output wavelength of the PPLN waveguide as the input wavelength is tuned.

Display system with tunable wavelength conversion in a nanophotonic periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide

A lighting unit for a display panel includes a light distribution module, an array of out-couplers, and a beam spot array generation module. The light distribution module includes a plurality of output waveguides for configurably distributing illuminating light between the output waveguides. Each out-coupler is coupled to an output waveguide and configured to out-couple a portion of the illuminating light to propagate towards the display panel. The beam spot array generation module is configured to receive portions of the illuminating light out-coupled by out-couplers of the array of out-couplers and to convert each portion to illuminate a zone of the display panel with an illuminating light field comprising an array of light spots. Each light spot is configured for illuminating an individual pixel or sub-pixel of the zone of the display panel.

Lighting unit with zonal illumination of a display panel

Various embodiments set forth light emission display elements, and display devices that include such display elements. In some embodiments, a display element includes an electroluminescent light source and a pair of reflective elements that form a resonant cavity for a particular range of wavelengths and/or a particular polarization of light. One or both of the reflective elements can include meta-reflectors, such as anisotropic meta-reflectors or chiral meta-reflectors. An optional waveplate can be placed between the reflective elements to adjust the polarization state of light emitted by the display element.

Light emission display element and device with polarized and angularly-controlled output

A display device may include a projector coupled to volume Bragg grating (VBG) based pupil-replicating lightguide. The projector may be a scanning projector or a display panel based projector. A lighting unit for the display panel may have spatially variant spectral composition selected to match angular and wavelength selectivity of the VBGs of the pupil-replicating lightguide, thereby improving light utilization efficiency of the display device. In scanning projector implementations, the center wavelength of the scanned light beam may be varied in coordination with the scanning, to achieve the same effect.

Lighting unit and display with wavelength-selective illumination

A self-lit display panel includes a photonic integrated circuit payer including an array of waveguides and an array of out-couplers for out-coupling portions of the illuminating light through pixels of the panel. The self-lit display panel may include a transparent electronic circuitry layer backlit by the photonic integrated circuit layer; the two layers may be on a same substrate or on opposed substrates defining a cell filled with an electro-active material. The configuration allows for chief ray engineering, zonal illuminating, and separate illumination with red, green, and blue illuminating light.

Self-lit display panel

A pupil-replicating lightguide includes a slab of transparent material, a switchable out-coupling grating for out-coupling portions of image light to propagate towards an eyebox, and a switchable tracking grating for redirecting tracking light carrying an eye image towards an eye tracking camera. One of the two gratings may be turned ON while the other is turned OFF, in a time-sequential manner, allowing the combined use of the pupil-replicating lightguide for carrying image light and eye tracking light.

A device is provided. The device includes a first liquid crystal ('LC') cell configured to modulate an amplitude of a light beam. The device also includes a second LC cell stacked with the first LC cell and configured to modulate a phase of the light beam. The device includes a sandwiched electrode layer disposed between the first LC cell and the second LC cell. The sandwiched electrode layer includes a conductive polymer film configured to function as a common electrode layer for driving at least one of the first LC cell or the second LC cell.

Complex wavefront modulator with reduced thickness and fabrication method thereof

In various embodiments, an apparatus comprises a composite backplane that modulates light from a light source, where the composite backplane comprises an electronics layer disposed on a substrate, a photonics integrated circuit (IC) layer disposed on the electronics layer that causes light from the light source to propagate in a first direction, and an active light modulation (ALM) interface layer disposed on the photonics IC layer controls an ALM interface layer in order to control the light propagating in the first direction.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Zhimin Shi