A backlight device includes: a light source to emit coherent light; an optical path difference generator on the light source, the optical path difference generator including an incident surface and a plurality of light emitting surfaces, the light emitting surfaces being parallel to the incident surface and having different separation distances from the incident surface; a light condenser on the optical path difference generator; a diffuser on the light condenser; and a collimator on the diffuser.

Provided is a holographic display apparatus capable of providing an expanded viewing window when reproducing a holographic image via an off-axis technique. The holographic display apparatus includes a spatial light modulator comprising a plurality of pixels arranged two-dimensionally; and an aperture enlargement film configured to enlarge a beam diameter of a light beam coming from each of the plurality of pixels of the spatial light modulator. The beam diameter of each light beam enlarged by the aperture enlargement film may be greater than the width of an aperture of each pixel of the spatial light modulator.

A method of computing a hologram for reconstructing an object using a display device. The display device enables a holographic reconstruction of the object. The display device includes a light source and an optical system to illuminate a hologram-bearing medium being encodable with the hologram. The method includes the steps of: (a) computing the hologram by determining the wavefronts at an approximate observer eye position that would be generated by a real version of the object to be reconstructed; and (b) encoding the computed hologram in the hologram-bearing medium.

Disclosed is a holographic display including a spatial light modulator (SLM) with pixels, the SLM pixels being on a substrate, the SLM including circuitry which is on the same substrate as the SLM pixels, the circuitry operable to perform calculations which provide an encoding of the SLM.

The invention relates to a display device for representing two-dimensional and/or three-dimensional scenes. The display device comprises at least one illumination device to emit sufficiently coherent light, at least one spatial light modulation device, at least one optical system and a tracking device. A hologram is encoded into the at least one spatial light modulation device by means of a single-parallax encoding. The at least one optical system is provided to generate at least one virtual visibility region at the position of an eye of an observer. The encoding direction of the hologram on the spatial light modulation device is modifiable by means of the tracking device.

The present disclosure relates to devices and methods configured to perform drug screening on cells. At least one embodiment relates to a lens-free device for performing drug screening on cells. The lens-free device includes a substrate having a surface. The lens-free device also includes a light source positioned to illuminate the cells, when present, on the substrate surface with a light wave. The lens-free device further includes a sensor positioned to detect an optical signal caused by illuminating the cells. The substrate surface includes a microelectrode array for sensing an electrophysiological signal from the cells.

A volumetric display system including a volumetric display for displaying a scene viewable as a three-dimensional floating-in-the-air scene in a display space, enabling a user to reach a first object into the display space, a location determination unit locating real objects in the display space, providing a location of the first object when the first object is inserted into the display space, and a computer for receiving the location of the first object, detecting when the location of the first object is at a location where an object is displayed in the three-dimensional scene, thereby determining that the first object is viewable as touching the displayed object following a detection of the first object viewable as touching the displayed object, producing a new three-dimensional scene displaying the displayed object as if manipulated by the first object. Related apparatus and methods are also described.

Disclosed are methods and systems for displaying images, and for implementing volumetric user interfaces. One exemplary embodiment provides a system comprising: a light source; an image producing unit, which produces an image upon interaction with light approaching the image producing unit from the light source; an eyepiece; and a mirror, directing light from the image to a surface of the eyepiece, wherein the surface has a shape of a solid of revolution formed by revolving a planar curve at least 180 around an axis of revolution.

A digital holographic image-taking apparatus includes an illumination portion having a light emission surface for emitting illumination light toward an object, the illumination light having a specific wavelength in a coherent plane waveform; and an image sensor having an pixel array including two-dimensionally arranged pixels, the image sensor capturing an interference pattern generated based on the illumination light having acted on the object, in which the following conditional expression is satisfied: 0.0000001<Z.sup.2/S<16, where S represents the area of the light emission surface, and Z represents the distance from the light emission surface to the pixel array.

A holographic display with an illumination device, an enlarging unit and a light modulator. The illumination device includes at least one light source and a light collimation unit, the light collimation unit collimates the light of the at least one light source and generates a light wave field of the light that is emitted by the light source with a specifiable angular spectrum of plane waves, the enlarging unit is disposed downstream of the light collimation unit, seen in the direction of light propagation, where the enlarging unit includes a transmissive volume hologram realising an anamorphic broadening of the light wave field due to a transmissive interaction of the light wave field with the volume hologram, and the light modulator is disposed upstream or downstream of the anamorphic enlarging unit, seen in the direction of light propagation.