Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses
In lightweight augmented reality (AR) glasses, the light engines must be very compact while keeping a high optical efficiency to enable longtime comfortable wearing and high ambient contrast ratio. “Liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) or micro-LED, who wins?” is recently a heated debate question. Conve...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institue of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2024-10-01
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| Series: | Opto-Electronic Advances |
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| Online Access: | https://www.oejournal.org/article/doi/10.29026/oea.2024.240039 |
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| author | Zhenyi Luo Yuqiang Ding Fenglin Peng Guohua Wei Yun Wang Shin-Tson Wu |
| author_facet | Zhenyi Luo Yuqiang Ding Fenglin Peng Guohua Wei Yun Wang Shin-Tson Wu |
| author_sort | Zhenyi Luo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In lightweight augmented reality (AR) glasses, the light engines must be very compact while keeping a high optical efficiency to enable longtime comfortable wearing and high ambient contrast ratio. “Liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) or micro-LED, who wins?” is recently a heated debate question. Conventional LCoS system is facing tremendous challenges due to its bulky illumination systems; it often incorporates a bulky polarizing beam splitter (PBS) cube. To minimize the formfactor of an LCoS system, here we demonstrate an ultracompact illumination system consisting of an in-coupling prism, and a light guide plate with multiple parallelepiped extraction prisms. The overall module volume including the illumination optics and an LCoS panel (4.4-μm pixel pitch and 1024x1024 resolution elements), but excluding the projection optics, is merely 0.25 cc (cm3). Yet, our system exhibits an excellent illuminance uniformity and an impressive optical efficiency (36%–41% for a polarized input light). Such an ultracompact and high-efficiency LCoS illumination system is expected to revolutionize the next-generation AR glasses. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-8095915599f74a599188c8bacf50b51f |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2096-4579 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-10-01 |
| publisher | Institue of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Opto-Electronic Advances |
| spelling | doaj-art-8095915599f74a599188c8bacf50b51f2025-08-20T02:37:10ZengInstitue of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of SciencesOpto-Electronic Advances2096-45792024-10-0171011210.29026/oea.2024.240039OEA-2024-0039WuShin-TsonUltracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glassesZhenyi Luo0Yuqiang Ding1Fenglin Peng2Guohua Wei3Yun Wang4Shin-Tson Wu5College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando FL 32816, USACollege of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando FL 32816, USAMeta Reality Labs, 9845 Willows Road NE, Redmond, WA 98052, USAMeta Reality Labs, 9845 Willows Road NE, Redmond, WA 98052, USAMeta Reality Labs, 9845 Willows Road NE, Redmond, WA 98052, USACollege of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando FL 32816, USAIn lightweight augmented reality (AR) glasses, the light engines must be very compact while keeping a high optical efficiency to enable longtime comfortable wearing and high ambient contrast ratio. “Liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) or micro-LED, who wins?” is recently a heated debate question. Conventional LCoS system is facing tremendous challenges due to its bulky illumination systems; it often incorporates a bulky polarizing beam splitter (PBS) cube. To minimize the formfactor of an LCoS system, here we demonstrate an ultracompact illumination system consisting of an in-coupling prism, and a light guide plate with multiple parallelepiped extraction prisms. The overall module volume including the illumination optics and an LCoS panel (4.4-μm pixel pitch and 1024x1024 resolution elements), but excluding the projection optics, is merely 0.25 cc (cm3). Yet, our system exhibits an excellent illuminance uniformity and an impressive optical efficiency (36%–41% for a polarized input light). Such an ultracompact and high-efficiency LCoS illumination system is expected to revolutionize the next-generation AR glasses.https://www.oejournal.org/article/doi/10.29026/oea.2024.240039liquid-crystal-on-siliconlight guide plateillumination systemaugmented reality |
| spellingShingle | Zhenyi Luo Yuqiang Ding Fenglin Peng Guohua Wei Yun Wang Shin-Tson Wu Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses Opto-Electronic Advances liquid-crystal-on-silicon light guide plate illumination system augmented reality |
| title | Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| title_full | Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| title_fullStr | Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| title_short | Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid-crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| title_sort | ultracompact and high efficiency liquid crystal on silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses |
| topic | liquid-crystal-on-silicon light guide plate illumination system augmented reality |
| url | https://www.oejournal.org/article/doi/10.29026/oea.2024.240039 |
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