Highly efficient waveguide display with space-variant volume holographic gratings.

Abstract

We propose a highly efficient waveguide display based on space-variant volume holographic gratings (SVVHGs). The local period and slant angle of the SVVHG vary along the tangential direction, enabling variant incident angles to satisfy the Bragg condition of the local gratings. As a result, we enlarge the field of view (FOV) without using the conventional multiplexing scheme, while achieving high efficiency and large FOV at the same time. We experimentally record the SVVHGs on Bayfol HX200 films. We demonstrate that the proposed display can achieve 31.9% system efficiency for a broadband light source and 52.3% for a coherent light source, 20° FOV, and high brightness uniformity, making it a promising candidate for widespread applications in the augmented reality (AR) industry.