A metalens for virtual and augmented reality
In 2018, the Capasso’s team developed achromatic, aberration-free metalenses that work across the entire visible spectrum of light. But these lenses were only tens of microns in diameter, too small for practical use in VR and augmented reality systems.
Now, the researchers have developed a two-millimeter achromatic metalenses that can focus RGB (red, blue, green) colors without aberrations and developed a miniaturized display for virtual and augmented reality applications.
The research is published in Science Advances.
“This state-of-the-art lens opens a path to a new type of virtual reality platform and overcomes the bottleneck that has slowed the progress of new optical device,” said Capasso, the senior author of the paper.
“Using new physics and a new design principle, we have developed a flat lens to replace the bulky lenses of today’s optical devices,” said Zhaoyi Li, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. “This is the largest RGB-achromatic metalens to date and is a proof of concept that these lenses can be scaled up to centimeter size, mass produced, and integrated in commercial platforms.”
...In a VR or AR platform, the metalens would sit directly in front of the eye, and the display would sit within the focal plane of the metalens. The patterns scanned by the display are focused onto the retina, where the virtual image forms, with the help of the metalens. To the human eye, the image appears as part of the landscape in the AR mode, some distance from our actual eyes.
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Next, the team aims to scale up the lens even further, making it compatible with current large-scale fabrication techniques for mass production at a low cost.
The Harvard Office of Technology Development has protected the intellectual property relating to this project and is exploring commercialization opportunities.
See the full story here: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/01/metalens-virtual-and-augmented-reality
