A directional illuminator includes a light source, a pupil-replicating lightguide, and a tiltable reflector coupling the light source to the pupil-replicating lightguide. The exit beam angle of the light outputted by the pupil-replicating lightguide follows the in-coupling angle, and accordingly depends on the tilting angle of the tiltable reflector. The directional illuminator with steered light beam may be used to illuminate a display panel. Steering the illuminating light by the tiltable reflector enables one to steer the exit pupil of the display device to match the user's eye location(s).

A light guide substrate, including a light coupling-in region with multiple first gratings, a light expansion region with multiple sub light expansion regions, and a light coupling-out region, is provided. Each sub light expansion region includes multiple second gratings. The sub light expansion regions include a first set of sub light expansion regions and a second set of sub light expansion regions. Each second grating in the first set of sub light expansion regions includes a first microstructure and a second microstructure. The light coupling-out region includes multiple third gratings. When an image light enters the light guide substrate from the light coupling-in region through the first gratings, the image light is first transmitted to the light expansion region in the light guide substrate, then transmitted to the light coupling-out region through the second gratings, and then emitted from the light coupling-out region through the third gratings.

A waveguide display includes light sources, a source waveguide, an output waveguide, and a controller. Light from each of the light sources is coupled into the source waveguide. The source waveguide includes gratings with a constant period determined based on the conditions for total internal reflection and first order diffraction of the received image light. The emitted image light is coupled into the output waveguide at several entrance locations. The output waveguide outputs expanded image lights at a location offset from the entrance location, and the location/direction of the emitted expanded image light is based in part on the orientation of the light sources. Each of the expanded image light is associated with a field of view of the expanded image light emitted by the output waveguide.

To improve luminance of image information visually recognized by a user while using plastic for a light guide plate. An image display element includes: a plastic substrate; an incident diffraction grating integrally formed on a surface of the plastic substrate and configured to diffract incident video light; an emission diffraction grating integrally formed on a surface of the plastic substrate and configured to emit the video light; and a coating layer formed on the emission diffraction grating and having a thickness of 10 nm or more and 1000 nm or less and a refractive index of 1.64 or more and 2.42 or less.

According to one embodiment, an illumination device, in which a plurality of light guides include a plurality of light guide pairs, each of the plurality of light guide pairs includes a first light guide and a second light guide, the plurality of light guide pairs are connected with their long sides opposed to each other, a plurality of laser light source elements include a plurality of first light source elements arranged to be opposed to a first side surface on a short side of the first light guide of the light guide pair, and a plurality of second light source elements arranged to be opposed to a second side surface of the second light guide of the light guide pair.

An optical waveguide system and an electronic device are disclosed. The system comprises: a waveguide; an input coupler coupling a light into the waveguide; and an output coupler, wherein the input coupler includes a right portion and a left portion, wherein the right portion includes stacked first and second polarization volume gratings, the left portion includes stacked third and fourth polarization volume gratings. The first and fourth polarization volume gratings are polarization volume gratings optimized for a right-hand-side field of view of the light, and the third and second polarization volume gratings are polarization volume gratings optimized for a lefthand-side field of view of the light.

In a display device, an image having an aspect not equal to 1 is formed by an image forming unit configured to form an image, and the image is guided as an image light to a display position by an optical system. The optical system, which is provided with a diffraction optical element, deflects the image light. In the diffraction optical element, a pitch direction of a pattern for deflecting the image light coincides with a direction in which the aspect of the image is narrow. In the display device, the direction in which the image light is deflected by the diffraction optical element coincides with the direction in which the aspect of the image formed is narrow, thus making it possible to suppress unevenness of brightness and hue within a plane of an image displayed.

A holographic display is comprised of space-multiplexed elemental modulators, each of which consists of a surface acoustic wave transducer atop an anisotropic waveguide. Each “line” of the overall display consists of a single anisotropic waveguide across the display's length with multiple surface acoustic wave transducers spaced along the waveguide length, although for larger displays, the waveguide may be divided into segments, each provided with separate illumination. Light that is undiffracted by a specific transducer is available for diffraction by subsequent transducers. Per transducer, guided-mode light is mode-converted to leaky-mode light, which propagates into the substrate away from the viewer before encountering a volume reflection grating and being reflected and steered towards the viewer. The display is transparent and all reflection volume gratings operate in the Bragg regime, thereby creating no dispersion of ambient light.

Systems and methods for providing holographic waveguide display using integrated gratings in accordance with various embodiments of the invention are illustrated. One embodiment includes a waveguide display including a source of light, and a first waveguide including a grating structure including first and second gratings, and an input coupler configured to couple a first field-of-view portion of light, and couple a second field-of-view portion of light, wherein the first grating is configured to provide beam expansion in a first direction for the first field-of-view portion of light, and provide beam expansion in the first direction and beam extraction towards a viewer for the second field-of-view portion of light, the second grating is configured to provide beam expansion in a second direction for the second field-of-view portion of light, and provide beam expansion in the second direction and beam extraction towards a viewer for the first field-of-view portion of light.

Provided is an augmented reality device including a display element configured to generate a first image, an optical coupler including a first surface through which the first image is input and a second surface opposite the first surface and configured to output light that is input through the first surface to the second surface and output light that is input through the second surface to the first surface, a reflective polarizer provided on the side of the second surface of the optical coupler and configured to reflect light with a first polarization and transmit light with a second polarization different from the first polarization, and a polarization selective variable focus lens provided in a traveling path of the light with the first polarization reflected by the reflective polarizer and having variable refractive power with respect to the light with the first polarization.