Metasurfaces for near-eye augmented reality

TL;DR

This paper presents a metasurface-based holographic display for near-eye augmented reality, enabling compact, passive contact lens displays that project virtual images directly onto the retina without additional optical components.

Contribution

It introduces a novel metasurface hologram that displays arbitrary patterns passively, simplifying near-eye AR devices by eliminating the need for dynamic optical elements.

Findings

Displays arbitrary virtual patterns on the retina

Enables compact, passive AR contact lenses

Eliminates extra optical components

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to revolutionize the way in which information is presented by overlaying virtual information onto a person's direct view of their real-time surroundings. By placing the display on the surface of the eye, a contact lens display (CLD) provides a versatile solution for compact AR. However, an unaided human eye cannot visualize patterns on the CLD simply because of the limited accommodation of the eye. Here, we introduce a holographic display technology that casts virtual information directly to the retina so that the eye sees it while maintaining the visualization of the real-world intact. The key to our design is to introduce metasurfaces to create a phase distribution that projects virtual information in a pixel-by-pixel manner. Unlike conventional holographic techniques, our metasurface-based technique is able to display arbitrary patterns using a single passive hologram. With a small form-factor, the designed metasurface empowers near-eye AR excluding the need of extra optical elements, such as a spatial light modulator, for dynamic image control.