An octave bandwidth, achromatic metalens configured to operate in light wavelengths having a range of approximately 640 nm to 1200 nm.

A laser beam combining device includes an emission optical system that emits a plurality of circular laser beams propagated coaxially and having mutually different wavelengths, and a diffractive optical element that is concentric and diffracts the plurality of circular laser beams. The diffractive optical element diffracts the plurality of circular laser beams in accordance with the wavelengths of the circular laser beams, such that local diffraction angles of diffracted light of the plurality of circular laser beams incident at mutually different local incidence angles are equal to each other.

There are provided an excellent diffractive optical element having a small amount of flare coloring and unaffected optical performance with a decrease in diffraction efficiency minimized and an optical system and an optical apparatus using the diffractive optical element. A diffractive optical element GD used in an optical system OL of a camera 1, which is an optical apparatus, and including a diffraction grating so that the diffractive optical element GD serves as a lens is so configured that the grating height h0 of the diffraction grating in a central region Ac around an optical axis Z is smaller than the grating height hmax of the diffraction grating in a peripheral region Ap.

To overcome the problem of a diffractive surface having a large, and often excessively large, amount of chromatic aberration, an optical system can use multiple cascaded or sequential diffractive surfaces that, combined, have a reduced amount of chromatic aberration. The optical system can be designed such that all rays traversing the optical system and passing through the diffractive surfaces have an equal optical path length. In the design process, the sets of rays are identified, and the designs of the diffractive surfaces are selected to produce the angular deviations to produce the identified ray paths. In one example, an achromatic lens formed as two annular optical surfaces can receive a collimated incident beam, redirect rays helically at the first surface toward the second surface, and redirect the rays at the second surface toward a focal point. The azimuthal redirection can decrease with increasing distance away from a central axis.

A multi-functional diffractive optical element (DOE) for redirecting light into a waveguide and providing higher order aberration correction is described. The multi-functional DOE may be positioned on, connected to, adjacent to, or within a waveguide, and in some examples is positioned at, or near, the exit pupil of the projector lens. In an example, a head-mounted display (HMD) is configured to output artificial reality content, comprising a waveguide configured to receive input light and configured to output the received input light to an eyebox. The HMD further comprises a projector configured to input light into the waveguide, the projector comprising a display, a projection lens, and a multi-functional diffractive optical element (DOE) configured to redirect light from the projector into the waveguide and provide higher order aberration correction of the light from the display.

An optical device is provided that comprises a multi-order diffractive Fresnel lens (MOD-DFL) and an achromatizing compensation mechanism that reduces refractive dispersion created by the MOD-DFL, thereby reducing the focal range of the MOD-DFL. A method is also provided of using the optical device in an image processing system to obtain images of an object and processing the images to perform image enhancement.

An optical device includes a lightguide having a first pair of external surfaces parallel to each other, and at least two sets of facets. Each of the sets including a plurality of partially reflecting facets parallel to each other, and between the first pair of external surfaces. In each of the sets of facets, the respective facets are at an oblique angle relative to the first pair of external surfaces, and at a non-parallel angle relative to another of the sets of facets. The optical device is particularly suited for optical aperture expansion.

A hologram image display apparatus includes an illumination optical system that emits an illumination light beam wavefront and a spatial light modulator having a light modulation area that converts the illumination light beam wavefront by diffraction to a display light beam wavefront and displays a virtual image. The spatial light modulator forms the display light beam wavefront by modulating the illumination light beam wavefront so that at least a portion of a regular light ray group configuring the display light beam wavefront is a light ray group with a diffraction angle having an absolute value greater than the ±first-order diffraction angle by the spatial light modulator, and another portion of the regular light ray group is a light ray group with a diffraction angle having an absolute value of the ±first-order diffraction angle or less by the spatial light modulator.

An augmented reality or virtual reality display device is disclosed. A first input grating (6; 106; 306; 406; 506) is provided on a waveguide assembly to receive light from a first projector (2; 102; 202; 302; 402; 502) and to couple the light into the at least one waveguide. A second input grating (116; 316; 416; 516) is provided to receive light from a second projector (12; 112; 212; 312; 412; 512) and couple the light into the at least one waveguide. An output diffractive optical element couples light out of the at least one waveguide towards a notional viewing position. The first projector provides light to the first input diffractive optical element in a direction that is at a first angle to a waveguide normal vector, and the second projector is configured to provide light to the second input diffractive optical element in a direction that is at a second angle to the waveguide normal vector. The output diffractive optical element is configured to couple light out of the at least one waveguide in a first range of angles for light from the first projector and in a second range of angles for light from the second projector, wherein the first range of angles and the second range of angles are different but are partially overlapping.

A residual aberration controller arranged in the optical path of an image-forming light beam to create an aesthetic effect in an otherwise sharp image by selectively introducing residual aberrations into the wavefront of the image-forming light beam. The residual aberration controller is adjustable between a first configuration that provides either no substantial change or a relatively small aesthetic change to the otherwise sharp image and a second configuration that provides a substantial change to the sharp image to create the aesthetic effect. Aesthetic effects can include, to varying degrees, flare, bokeh, image softening, anamorphic and related effects that are desirable in certain imaging applications but that are difficult to produce in a quick and reversible manner. The residual aberration controller can be combined with almost any type of objective lens to achieve aesthetic imaging effects quickly, affordably and reversibly by a simple adjustment and without defocus.