Apparatus are described herein related to augmenting human vision by means of adaptive polarization filter grids. A preferred embodiment is described as smart sunglasses, realized as see through head mountable device (HMD) configured to reduce glare originating from polarized light. Each eyeglass of the HMD is associated with a grid comprising a plurality of dynamically configurable polarization filters placed in the path of the light. A polarization analyzer module analyzes the polarization characteristics of a field of view and performs an optimization calculation. The polarization analyzer controls the said grid via a controller module in such a way that the filter state of each grid element can be addressed separately. The grid of polarization filters causes the polarization characteristics of the incident light to be adapted in such a way as to reduce glare and/or to provide a user of the said head mountable device with an enhanced visual perception of the field of view. The user of the described head mountable device has the option of selection between a plurality of polarization enhancement modes, such as horizontal or vertical polarization filtering only or a hybrid mode combining both horizontal and vertical polarization filtering on an individual basis for each grid element. Additionally smart window and smart mirror embodiments of the described adaptive polarization filter grids are introduced.

The disclosed matter provides integrated metasurface devices for conversion between a waveguide mode and a free-space optical wave with a designer wavefront. In exemplary embodiments, the integrated metasurface devices include a thin waveguide, a waveguide taper, a leaky-wave metasurface defined within a high refractive index layer of dielectric material, and a low refractive index substrate. The device can manipulate all the four optical degrees of freedom of the free-space wavefront, namely: amplitude, phase, polarization orientation, and polarization ellipticity, by using a leaky-wave metasurface composed of meta-units with four structural degrees of freedom.

An imaging method of a head-mounted display and a head-mounted display are disclosed. The method includes, but is not limited to: detecting a wavefront of a beam emitted by the head-mounted display through its optical system; acquiring a position of a visual axis of a human eye; calculating a deviation between the visual axis of the human eye and an optical axis of the optical system; and adjusting a wavefront incident to the human eye according to the deviation, so that a correspondence between the wavefront incident to the human eye and the visual axis is consistent with a correspondence between the wavefront of the beam emitted from the optical system and the optical axis.

A device for modulation of light (16) having a wavelength, comprising: a first substrate (10) with a first face (81) and a second opposite face (82), and comprising a first electrode (11); a second substrate (20) adjacent to the second face (82) and defining a gap between the first and second substrate (10, 20), the second substrate (20) comprising a second electrode (21); a responsive liquid crystal layer (15) disposed in the gap, wherein the responsive liquid crystal layer (15) has a flexoelectro-optic chiral nematic phase, and is birefringent with an optic axis that tilts in response to an applied electric field between the first and second electrode (11, 21); and a mirror adjacent to the second substrate (20), the mirror configured to reflect incident circular polarised light while preserving its handedness.

Some implementations of the disclosure relate to a display system, including: a display that emits light corresponding to an image; and one or more optical control components configured to receive the light emitted by the display and modify one or more properties associated with the light as it passes through the one or more optical control components. Each optical control component includes a polarization-dependent metasurface. The one or more properties include: a direction the light travels, a position of the light, an angular distribution of the light, a perceived depth of the image, or a wavelength of the light that is filtered. Each optical control component is configured to dynamically switch between a first state where the optical control component modifies at least one property associated with the light, and a second state where the optical control component does not modify the at least one property.

An example deformable mirror includes a number of cells defining an aperture plane of the mirror. Each of the cells includes a first transparent electrode layer and a second reflective electrode layer, with a solid crystal electro-optical (EO) active layer between the electrode layers. The deformable mirror includes a reflective layer optically coupled to each of the cells on the reflective side of the cell.

An optical scanning apparatus includes a light source; an optical fiber; a wavefront modulator configured to emit light, a reference wavefront of which is corrected, based on information about the reference wavefront and correction information and make the light incident upon the first end face via a predetermined optical system; and a processor configured to control the wavefront modulator based on the correction information and the information about the reference wavefront, the correction information being found based on a correlation between a first distribution and a second distribution, the first distribution being at least one of an intensity distribution or a phase distribution of emergent light from the second end face, the second distribution being at least one of an intensity distribution or a phase distribution of the desired light.

A device for modulation of light (16) having a wavelength, comprising: a first substrate (10) with a first face (81) and a second opposite face (82), and comprising a first electrode (11); a second substrate (20) adjacent to the second face (82) and defining a gap between the first and second substrate (10, 20), the second substrate (20) comprising a second electrode (21); a responsive liquid crystal layer (15) disposed in the gap, wherein the responsive liquid crystal layer (15) has a flexoelectro-optic chiral nematic phase, and is birefringent with an optic axis that tilts in response to an applied electric field between the first and second electrode (11, 21); and a minor adjacent to the second substrate (20), the minor configured to reflect incident circular polarised light while preserving its handedness.

A method includes: producing a light beam made up of pulses having a wavelength in the deep ultraviolet range, each pulse having a first temporal coherence defined by a first temporal coherence length and each pulse being defined by a pulse duration; for one or more pulses, modulating the optical phase over the pulse duration of the pulse to produce a modified pulse having a second temporal coherence defined by a second temporal coherence length that is less than the first temporal coherence length of the pulse; forming a light beam of pulses at least from the modified pulses; and directing the formed light beam of pulses toward a substrate within a lithography exposure apparatus.

Aspects of the present disclosure describe systems, methods, and structures for aberration correction of optical phased arrays that employ a corrective optical path difference (OPD) in the near-field of an OPA to correct or cancel out aberrations in emitted beams of the OPA including those reaching far-field distances by generating a spatially-varying OPD across the aperture of the OPA that is substantially equal and opposite to an equivalent OPD of the aberration(s).