Design of achromatic augmented reality visors based on composite metasurfaces

A compact near-eye visor (NEV) system that can guide light from a display to the eye could transform augmented reality (AR) technology. Unfortunately, existing implementations of such an NEV either suffer from small field of view or chromatic aberrations. See-through quality and bulkiness further make the overall performance of the visors unsuitable for a seamless user experience. Metasurfaces are an emerging class of nanophotonic elements that can dramatically reduce the size of optical elements while enhancing functionality. In this paper, we present a design of composite metasurfaces for an ultracompact NEV. We simulate the performance of a proof-of-principle visor corrected for chromatic aberrations while providing a large display field of view (>77 degrees both horizontally and vertically) and good see-through quality [>70% transmission and less than a wavelength root mean-square (RMS) wavefront error over the whole visible wavelength range] as needed for an immersive AR experience. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America

Automated summary

This paper presents a design of an ultracompact near-eye visor system using composite metasurfaces to reduce optical elements size significantly while correcting chromatic aberrations, providing a large display field of view and good see-through quality for an immersive augmented reality experience.