Key Points
- Researchers have developed a new optical component that could significantly improve the performance of AR glasses.
- The new component uses “metasurfaces” to make the display brighter and more power-efficient.
- This is the first time a complex, multi-zone metasurface in-coupler has been successfully demonstrated in the real world.
- The technology could help AR glasses become as light and comfortable as regular eyeglasses.
Researchers have designed a new optical component that could make augmented reality (AR) glasses much brighter and clearer. This breakthrough could help bring AR glasses one step closer to being as common and useful as smartphones are today.
Many of today’s AR headsets are bulky, have short battery life, and feature dim displays that are hard to see, especially outdoors. “By creating a much more efficient input port for the display, our work could help make AR glasses much brighter and more power-efficient,” said research team leader Nick Vamivakas from the University of Rochester.
In a paper published in Optical Materials Express, the researchers explain how they improved a key component, the “waveguide in-coupler”—the part where the image enters the glass lens. They replaced the standard single-part in-coupler with a new one that has three specialized zones, each made of a “metasurface” material.
Metasurfaces are ultra-thin materials with patterns thousands of times smaller than a human hair. These patterns allow them to bend and focus light in ways that traditional lenses can’t. By using metasurfaces, the researchers were able to design an in-coupler that catches incoming light more efficiently, dramatically reduces light leakage, and preserves the image quality.
This new paper is the first to show that this complex, multi-zone design actually works in the real world. The researchers built and tested the new in-coupler, and their measurements showed an average efficiency of 30%, which was very close to the results of their computer simulations.
The team is now working on applying this new metasurface design to other parts of the AR system. Their next steps are to expand the design from single-color to full-color and to improve its performance at the edges of the field of view.
While this is a big step forward, the researchers note that for the technology to be ready for the market, they will need to build a fully integrated prototype and develop a cost-effective manufacturing process for the complex nanostructures.
