Metalens-array-based integral-imaging near-eye display

In virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) display, the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) is a significant issue. Thus, true-3D display technologies has been proposed to solve the VAC problem. Integral imaging (II) display, one of the most critical true-3D display technologies, has received increasing research recently. Significantly, anachromatic metalens array has realized a broadband metalens-array-based II (meta-II). However, the past micro-scale metalens arrays were incompatible with commercial micro-displays. Additionally, the elemental image array(EIA)rendering is slow. These device and algorithm problems prevent meta-II from being used for practical video-rate near-eye displays (NEDs). This research demonstrates a II-based NED combining a commercial micro-display and a metalens array. We make efforts in the hardware and software to solve the bottlenecks of video-rate metalens array II-based NED. The large-area nanoimprint technology fabricates the metalens array, and a novel real-time rendering algorithm is proposed to generate the EIA. We also build a see-through prototype based on our meta-II NED, demonstrating the effect of depth of field in AR, and the 3D parallax effect on the real mode. This work verifies the feasibility of nanoimprint technology for mass preparation of metalens samples, explores the potential of video-rate meta-II displays, which we can be applied in the fields of VR/AR and 3D display.