Flat lens extends viewing distance for 3D light field display

Researchers from Soochow University have created a glasses-free 3D light field display system with a significantly extended viewing distance, thanks to a newly developed flat lens. Described in the journal Optica, the system is an important step towards compact, realistic-looking 3D displays that could be used for televisions, portable electronics and tabletop devices.

Light field displays use a dense field of light rays to produce full-colour, real-time 3D videos that can be viewed without glasses. This approach to creating a 3D display allows several people to view the virtual scene at once from different angles, much like a real 3D object. However, the focal length of the lenses used to create these views is the limiting factor when it comes to viewing distance.

“Most light field 3D displays have a limited viewing range, which causes the 3D virtual image to degrade as the observer moves farther away from the device,” said Wen Qiao, team leader on the new research.

To overcome this, Qiao and colleagues designed a new diffractive flat lens by patterning nanostructures onto a flat surface in a way that focuses light. Intertwining several of these lenses allowed them to create a pixelated view modulator, the optical component that creates the various perspectives for a scene in a light field display. A 3D display that creates four views, for example, would use four of these lenses, each of which converges the light into a unique view.

“The nanostructured flat lens we designed is just 100 µm thick and has a very large depth of focus, which enables a high-quality virtual 3D scene to be seen from farther away,” Qiao said.

“Because flat lenses provide superior light manipulating capability compared to traditional glass lenses, they can be used to solve formidable problems such as limited motion parallax, crosstalk, visual fatigue and limited viewing distances in 3D displays.”

After showing that the lens achieved high resolution when focusing the red, green and blue light used by LCDs to create images, the researchers incorporated them into a 4″ prototype 3D light field display with viewing distances between 24 and 90 cm. The display formed a smooth horizontal parallax with a crosstalk below 26% over all viewing distances, which means there were few errors that would cause eye strain or make the image look unrealistic.

The display also exhibited a light efficiency that reached 82%, much higher than other similar 3D display systems that have been reported. High light efficiency is important for creating a bright virtual image, especially for applications where power consumption matters, such as portable electronics.

Although the prototype exhibited a viewing angle of only 9°, the researchers say this could be enlarged to almost 180° by optimising the design of the nanostructures used to make the flat lenses. In addition to studying this, they plan to further improve the light efficiency by developing a more sophisticated design algorithm for manipulating the light beam at each pixel. They said that easier ways to fabricate the nanostructures would also be required for this type of display to be practical to manufacture.

“We developed this new technology in hopes of creating displays that could allow people to feel as if they were actually together during a video conference,” Qiao said. “With the continued development of nanotechnology, we envision that glasses-free 3D displays will become a normal part of everyday life and will change the way people interact with computers.”

Image caption: A new glasses-free 3D light field display system with a significantly extended viewing distance represents an important step towards compact, realistic-looking 3D displays that could be used for televisions, portable electronics and tabletop devices. Image credit: Wen Qiao, Soochow University.

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