A polarization volume grating (PVG) includes a bulk, birefringent medium characterized by a plurality of helical structures with helix axes and a periodicity Λ.sub.y and an anisotropic alignment material having a rotatable optical axis, disposed on a top or bottom surface of the medium. The PVG is characterized in that the optical axis of the alignment material has a continuously rotated optical axis orientation in a plane of the material surface and a periodicity Λ.sub.x, wherein the helix axes are normal to the optical axes in the alignment material surface, further wherein the birefringent medium is characterized by a plurality of controllably slanted refractive index planes having a slant angle φ=±arctan (Λ.sub.y/Λ.sub.x) and a Bragg period Λ.sub.B. Fabrication methods are disclosed.

A composite pane includes an outer pane having outer and inner surfaces, a first thermoplastic intermediate layer, a hologram element including a first set of holograms produced in one or more layers of a holographic material, wherein the first set of holograms includes a blue hologram that is activatable by blue light having a wavelength in a first range and is not responsive to light of other wavelengths, a green hologram that is activatable by green light having a wavelength in a second range and is not responsive to light of other wavelengths, and a red hologram that is activatable by red light having a wavelength in a third range and is not responsive to light of other wavelengths, an inner pane, and a color-selective optical filter for selective absorption of light.

An optical device is provided. The optical device includes a substrate, a plurality of color filters and a plurality of spacers. The substrate has a central region and a peripheral region. The plurality of color filters include red color filters, green color filters and blue color filters and are formed on the substrate. The plurality of spacers are formed between the color filters. The refractive index of the spacers reduces gradually from that of the spacer located at the central region to that of the spacer located at the peripheral region of the substrate.

A system is provided. The system includes a light source configured to emit an infrared light to illuminate an eye of a user. The system includes a grating disposed facing the eye and including a birefringent material film configured with a uniform birefringence lower than or equal to 0.1. The grating is configured to diffract the infrared light reflected from the eye, and transmit a visible light from a real world environment toward the eye, with a diffraction efficiency less than a predetermined threshold. The system includes an optical sensor configured to receive the diffracted infrared light and generate an image of the eye based on the diffracted infrared light.

An optical member includes a reflection-scattering unit that reflects and scatters light having a wavelength band which corresponds to at least a portion of a visible wavelength range, and transmits light having a wavelength band which corresponds to at least a portion of an infrared region, wherein rectilinear transmittance for the light having the wavelength band which corresponds to at least the portion of the infrared region is equal to or greater than 75%.

The disclosure generally relates to image displays. Specifically, the application relates to an overlay that, among others, enhances the brightness in image displays with color filters. Much of the incoming light to a reflective image display having a color filter layer is absorbed by the color filter layer and is therefore lost. An overlay embodiment is disclosed herein that disperses and concentrates portions of the incoming light onto specific portions of the display. The amount of light absorbed by the color filter layer may be drastically reduced and instead transmitted through the color filter where the light may be reflected or absorbed by a light modulating layer. The disclosed embodiments increase the efficiency and reflectance of the display.

A meta-crystal slab includes photonic structure with an input surface and an output surface, and a plurality of first voxels with a first permittivity and a plurality of second voxels with a second permittivity not equal to the first permittivity disposed between the input surface and the output surface. The photonic structure has a periodicity greater than an operating photonic wavelength ‘λ’ for general convolution by the photonic structure and the photonic structure is configured to provide an output image with a convolution of an input image.

Multilevel leaky-mode optical elements, including reflectors, polarizers, and beamsplitters. Some of the elements have a plurality of spatially modulated periodic layers coupled to a substrate. For infrared applications, the optical elements may have a bandwidth larger than 600 nanometers.

Three-dimensional display systems may include polarized displays that polarize light emitted from a first set of areas of the display with a first polarization for a first eye of the viewer and that polarizes light emitted from a second set of areas of the display with a second polarization for a second eye of the viewer. This may result in dark areas being perceived by a viewer when viewed through polarized 3D glasses. Systems and technologies according to this disclosure may include 3D glasses that have a lenses configured to redirect a portion of incoming light in a first axis to at least partially illuminate the dark areas.

A reflector for vehicles includes a reflective surface that contains an optical element to reflect light incident on the optical element according to specific reflection characteristics. The reflective surface is designed as a hologram element which has a grating structure in such a way that light incident on the hologram element is reflected according to the specific reflection characteristics.