An optical device includes a liquid-crystal variable retarder. An exit-pupil expander is optically coupled to the liquid-crystal variable retarder, the exit-pupil expander includes: at least one optical input feature that receives reference light from a reference light source; and one or more optical coupling elements coupled to receive the reference light from the reference light source and expand the reference light to one or more spatially-separated regions of the liquid-crystal variable retarder

An optical device includes a first waveguide extending in a first direction and a second waveguide connected to the first waveguide. The second waveguide includes a first mirror, a second mirror, and an optical waveguide layer. At least either the first waveguide or the second waveguide has one or more gratings in a part of a connection region in which the first mirror, the second mirror, and the first waveguide overlap one another when seen from an angle parallel with a direction perpendicular to a first reflecting surface of the first mirror. The one or more gratings is at a distance that is longer than at least either a thickness of the first mirror or a thickness of the second mirror in the first direction from an end of the first mirror or the second mirror that is in the connection region.

An optical device including a plurality of electrodes, an electro-optic component, an optical grating, and a buried back reflector is described. The electro-optic component includes at least one optical material exhibiting an electro-optic effect. The optical grating is optically coupled with the electro-optic component. In some embodiments, the optical grating includes a vertical optical grating coupler. The buried back reflector is optically coupled with the optical grating. The buried back reflector is configured to increase a coupling efficiency of the optical grating to an out-of-plane optical mode and configured to reduce a performance perturbation to the plurality of electrodes. The buried back reflector may include a metal layer having a thickness of at least thirty nanometers and not more than five hundred nanometers.

An electro-holographic light field generator device comprises surface acoustic wave (SAW) optical modulators arranged in different directions. Specifically, some embodiments have SAW modulators arranged in pairs, nose-to-nose with each other, and have output couplers that provide face-fire light emission. These SAW modulators also possibly include SAW sense transducers and/or viscoelastic surface material to reduce crosstalk.

The present disclosure relates to the field of display technology, and provides a liquid crystal display panel, a display device, and a driving method for the same. The liquid crystal display panel includes an array of pixel units, wherein each pixel unit includes a plurality of sub-pixel units. The liquid crystal display panel further includes: a first substrate, a second substrate, a liquid crystal layer, a pixel electrode layer, a common electrode layer, and a waveguide grating which are stacked over each other.

Examples of an apparatus are disclosed. In some examples, an apparatus may comprise a first waveguide configured to propagate light originated from a light source, a first modulator coupled with the first waveguide, and a first sensor coupled with the first modulator. The apparatus may further comprise a second waveguide coupled with the first waveguide to form a propagation path for the light between the light source and a receiver device, a second modulator coupled with the second waveguide, and a second sensor coupled with the second modulator. The first modulator is configured to modulate the light propagating in the first waveguide based on sensor data from the first sensor, and the second modulator is configured to modulate the light propagating in the second waveguide based on sensor data from the second sensor, to enable the receiver device to obtain the sensor data.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar dielectric lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes an output coupler, such as a grating or photonic crystal, that guides the collimated beams in different directions out of the lens plane. A switch matrix controls which input port is illuminated and hence the in-plane propagation direction of the collimated beam. And a tunable light source changes the wavelength to control the angle at which the collimated beam leaves the plane of the substrate. The device is very efficient, in part because the input port (and thus in-plane propagation direction) can be changed by actuating only log.sub.2 N of the N switches in the switch matrix. It can also be much simpler, smaller, and cheaper because it needs fewer control lines than a conventional optical phased array with the same resolution.

An electro-optic device may include a photonic chip having an optical grating coupler at a surface. The optical grating coupler may include a first semiconductor layer having a first base and first fingers extending outwardly from the first base. The optical grating coupler may include a second semiconductor layer having a second base and second fingers extending outwardly from the second base and being interdigitated with the first fingers to define semiconductor junction areas, with the first and second fingers having a non-uniform width. The electro-optic device may include a circuit coupled to the optical grating coupler and configured to bias the semiconductor junction areas and change one or more optical characteristics of the optical grating coupler.

A display panel and a display device are provided. The display panel includes: a lower substrate and an upper substrate cell-assembled together; a light-emitting control layer disposed between the lower substrate and the upper substrate; and a plurality of pixel units defined by a plurality of data lines and gate lines intersected with each other. Each pixel unit includes a plurality of subpixel areas. One or more side surfaces of the lower substrate are configured to receive incidence of the collimated light. The light-emitting control layer is configured to control the light-emitting directions and the light-emitting colors of the subpixel areas, to allow the light-emitting directions of the subpixel areas toward the central portion of the display panel. The light-emitting control layer is also configured to control the display grayscale of the subpixel areas.

A beam-steering device (100) for spatial steering of a light beam comprises a waveguide array (10) being arranged on a substrate (50) and comprising a waveguide array input (12), multiple waveguides (14-1, 14-2, . . . , 14-i) and a waveguide array output (16), wherein the multiple waveguides (14-1, 14-2, . . . , 14-i) are adapted for simultaneously guiding light from the waveguide array input (12) to the waveguide array output (16) and for forming a light beam downstream of the waveguide array output (16) by superimposing the light guided by the waveguides (14-1, 14-2, . . . , 14-i), a phase shifter device (18) being arranged for applying controlled phase shifts to the light guided in each of the waveguides (14-1, 14-2, . . . , 14-i), and a grating array (22) including at least one patterned grating in optical communication with the waveguide array output (16), the grating array (22) being configured to radiate the light beam out of the beam-steering device (100) to a surrounding, wherein the waveguide array output (16) is arranged such that the light beam is formed downstream of the waveguide array output (16) with a main lobe and side lobes and with a beam angle ? in a plane of the substrate (50), that is determined by the controlled phase shifts applied to the light by the phase shifter device (18) and a wavelength of the light, a slab propagation region (20) is arranged between the waveguide array output (16) and the grating array (22) such that the main lobe of the light beam is angularly relayed to the grating array (22) and the side lobes of the light beam leave lateral sides of the slab propagation region (20) before reaching the grating array (22), and the grating array (22) is arranged to radiate the light beam out of the beam-steering device (100) with a first angular direction with respect to the substrate (50), that is determined by the beam angle ?. Furthermore, a method of beam-steering a light beam is described.