# 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.

## Key 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.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1901.06408