Three-Dimensional Light-Field Microendoscopy with a GRIN Lens Array

We improved the three-dimensional (3D) crosstalk level of multi-view 3D displays using a lens array with small f-number, thereby facilitating a wide 3D viewing window. In particular, we designed a polarization-dependent-switching liquid crystal (LC)-based gradient refractive index (GRIN) lens array that could be switched between 2D and 3D viewing modes. For the GRIN lens with a small f-number (1.08), we studied the effect of the interfacial curvature between the plano-concave isotropic polymer layer and the plano-convex birefringent LC layer on the aberration properties. We examined the conventional spherical, quadratic polynomial aspherical, and a high-order (fourth-order) polynomial aspherical curvature. For the high-order polynomial aspherical curvature, the achievable transverse spherical aberration (TSA = 10.2 µm) was considerably lower than that with the spherical (TSA = 100.3 µm) and quadratic polynomial aspherical (TSA = 30.4 µm) curvatures. Consequently, the angular luminance distributions for each view were sharper for the high-order polynomial interfacial curvature. We designed multi-view (43-view) 3D displays using the arrays of switchable LC lenses with different curvatures, and the average adjacent crosstalk levels within the entire viewing window (50°) were 68.5%, 73.3%, and 60.0% for the spherical, quadratic polynomial aspherical, and high-order polynomial aspherical curvatures, respectively.

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Full-chain modeling and performance analysis of integral imaging three-dimensional display system

Journal of the European Optical Society Rapid Publications ◽

10.1186/s41476-020-00134-7 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ying Yuan ◽

Xiaorui Wang ◽

Yang Yang ◽

Hang Yuan ◽

Chao Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Optimization Design ◽

Quality Evaluation ◽

Light Field ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Display System ◽

3D Display ◽

Performance Characterization ◽

Integral Imaging ◽

Characterization Model ◽

Display Quality

Abstract The full-chain system performance characterization is very important for the optimization design of an integral imaging three-dimensional (3D) display system. In this paper, the acquisition and display processes of 3D scene will be treated as a complete light field information transmission process. The full-chain performance characterization model of an integral imaging 3D display system is established, which uses the 3D voxel, the image depth, and the field of view of the reconstructed images as the 3D display quality evaluation indicators. Unlike most of the previous research results using the ideal integral imaging model, the proposed full-chain performance characterization model considering the diffraction effect and optical aberration of the microlens array, the sampling effect of the detector, 3D image data scaling, and the human visual system, can accurately describe the actual 3D light field transmission and convergence characteristics. The relationships between key parameters of an integral imaging 3D display system and the 3D display quality evaluation indicators are analyzed and discussed by the simulation experiment. The results will be helpful for the optimization design of a high-quality integral imaging 3D display system.

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Metalens Eyepiece for 3D Holographic Near-Eye Display

Nanomaterials ◽

10.3390/nano11081920 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 1920

Author(s):

Chang Wang ◽

Zeqing Yu ◽

Qiangbo Zhang ◽

Yan Sun ◽

Chenning Tao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Light Field ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Fresnel Diffraction ◽

Virtual Image ◽

Display Devices ◽

Computer Generated Holography ◽

Wavefront Shaping ◽

3D Scene ◽

Optimum Solution ◽

532 Nm

Near-eye display (NED) systems for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have been rapidly developing; however, the widespread use of VR/AR devices is hindered by the bulky refractive and diffractive elements in the complicated optical system as well as the visual discomfort caused by excessive binocular parallax and accommodation-convergence conflict. To address these problems, an NED system combining a 5 mm diameter metalens eyepiece and a three-dimensional (3D), computer-generated holography (CGH) based on Fresnel diffraction is proposed in this paper. Metalenses have been extensively studied for their extraordinary capabilities at wavefront shaping at a subwavelength scale, their ultrathin compactness, and their significant advantages over conventional lenses. Thus, the introduction of the metalens eyepiece is likely to reduce the issue of bulkiness in NED systems. Furthermore, CGH has typically been regarded as the optimum solution for 3D displays to overcome limitations of binocular systems, since it can restore the whole light field of the target 3D scene. Experiments are carried out for this design, where a 5 mm diameter metalens eyepiece composed of silicon nitride anisotropic nanofins is fabricated with diffraction efficiency and field of view for a 532 nm incidence of 15.7% and 31°, respectively. Furthermore, a novel partitioned Fresnel diffraction and resample method is applied to simulate the wave propagations needed to produce the hologram, with the metalens capable of transforming the reconstructed 3D image into a virtual image for the NED. Our work combining metalens and CGH may pave the way for portable optical display devices in the future.

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