Maxwellian near-eye display with an expanded eyebox

Maxwellian view systems can be employed to circumvent the vergence-accommodation conflict in near-eye displays (NEDs), which directly project images onto the retina regardless of the human eye's depth of focus. However, Maxwellian view optics typically have a limited eyebox, which prevents broader applications of this architecture in NEDs. Here, we demonstrate a thinfilm two-dimensional beam deflector composed of multi-twist broad-band Pancharatnam-Berry deflectors to mitigate this limitation via eyebox replication. Based on experimental validation, our proposed design can display always-focused full-color images within a 9 mm x 9 mm eyebox and thus mitigate the limitation of conventional Maxwellian displays while adding negligible weight and volume. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement