Abstract: A reflective waveguide includes a substrate comprising a plurality of partially-reflective prisms and an input hot mirror disposed at one or more partially-reflective prisms of the substrate. The input hot mirror is reflective to infrared light and substantially transmissive to visible light and is configured to incouple infrared light into the reflective waveguide. The substrate further comprises an incoupler configured to incouple display light into the reflective waveguide, an outcoupler comprising a first subset of the plurality of partially-reflective prisms and configured to outcouple the display light from the reflective waveguide, and an exit pupil expander comprising a second subset of the plurality of partially-reflective prisms and configured to guide the display light from the incoupler to the outcoupler.

Abstract: An eyewear display includes one or more lenses with an optical combiner integrated therein. The optical combiner includes a waveguide with an incoupler prism that is attached to a first surface of the waveguide. The first surface is opposite to a second surface of the waveguide facing a light emitting image source of the eyewear display. The incoupler prism is configured to receive a display image pupil generated by the light emitting image source and generate two input image pupils for incoupling into the waveguide.

Abstract: A display may include a waveguide, a prism that directs a pupil of light into the waveguide, and a partial reflector between the prism and the waveguide. The partial reflector may reflect a second portion of the pupil incident from within the waveguide but not a first portion of the pupil incident from within the waveguide. This may couple some of the second portion of the pupil back into the waveguide that would otherwise be lost through the prism after a first reflection off the waveguide surface opposite the prism. The partial reflector may sacrifice luminance of the light to maximize the pupil size that can be uniformly coupled into the waveguide for propagation to the eye box while minimizing the thickness of the waveguide.

Abstract: A waveguide includes a first configuration having an input coupler, an exit pupil expander, and an output coupler comprised of a first mirror array and a second mirror array. The first configuration further includes a light recycling mirror array disposed at an end opposite the exit pupil expander. Alternatively, or in addition to the first configuration, the waveguide includes a second configuration having a first light recycling mirror disposed at a first side of the exit pupil expander and a second light recycling mirror disposed at a second side of the exit pupil expander.

Abstract: A pupil-replicating waveguide usable in a VR display may have a slab of transparent material, an input grating coupler supported by the slab at the center of the slab, with output gratings supported by the slab and surrounding the input grating coupler. The input grating coupler couples image light into the slab, which propagates in the slab by total internal reflections. The out-coupling grating or gratings spread the image light all around the input grating, providing a wide beam of image light illuminating the eyebox of the VR display.

Abstract: An eyewear display includes a waveguide incorporated into at least one of the lenses of the eyewear display. The waveguide includes a first set of adjustable reflectors, and each adjustable reflector of the first set of adjustable reflectors is switchable between a first state in which the adjustable reflector is transparent and a second state in which the adjustable reflector reflects a portion of light incident thereon. The eyewear display also includes a controller to send a control signal to a subset of the first set of adjustable reflectors to control the subset of the first set of adjustable reflectors to operate in the first state or the second state.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for using request rate data to determine when and how to split storage partitions in a distributed storage system. Data objects in a given partition are stored and managed using a set of computing resources, such as caches, a witness service, and persistent storage nodes. When the request rate for the partition is too great, then the partition may be split in order to distribute the request load over two sets of computing resources. Some requests that would be able to be handled by the cache are passed through to the persistent storage nodes, which can track the requests at a granular level. Based on this data, specific partition splitting decisions can be made.

Abstract: In some implementations, the method may include disposing an infrared (IR) absorbing material at one or both of a first surface of a first transparent body composed of a polymer or a second surface of a second transparent body composed of the polymer. In addition, the method may include positioning the first transparent body adjacent to the second transparent body so that the first surface abuts the second surface. The method may include bonding the first transparent body to the second transparent body through reflow of the polymer at an interface between the first surface and the second surface by emitting light, via a first light source, into the first transparent body and which is converted to heat energy by the IR absorbing material.

Abstract: A reflective waveguide includes active and inactive facets that are non-selectively coated with a partially reflective coating while minimizing reflections from the inactive facets without using a stencil mask. The partially reflective coating has a refractive index that is closely matched to a refractive index of a polymer substrate of the waveguide, is applied using a directional deposition technique such that the coating is thicker on the active prism facets than on the inactive prism facets, and the backside of the prism facets is angled such that the angle of incidence of display light on the backside of the prism facets is less than approximately 80 degrees.

Abstract: A lightguide for a head-wearable display or near-eye display includes an incoupler configured to direct display light representative of an image to the eye of a user. To direct the display light, the lightguide includes an incoupler that has reflectors configured to first direct the display light into the lightguide such that the display light propagates through the body lightguide and is received at a combined exit pupil expansion and outcoupling structure of the lightguide. This combined exit pupil expansion and outcoupling structure includes an array of louver retroreflectors that expands the eyebox of the image and also directs at least a portion of the display light out of the lightguide and toward the eye of the user. The louver retroreflectors in the array of louver retroreflectors each includes a first reflective surface and a second reflective surface arranged substantially orthogonal to each other.

Abstract: A device for providing a 1D line of an image is disclosed. The device includes a wavelength-tunable light source for providing image light having the angular distribution encoded in optical spectrum. The device further includes a thin slab waveguide having an out-coupler in form of a diffraction grating for out-coupling the image light at an angle dependent on wavelength. The image may be formed by scanning a collimated beam propagating in the slab waveguide when using tunable monochromatic light sources, or by forming the 1D singular distribution of brightness at a same time when using a tunable-spectrum light sources. The device may be used in a near-eye display for forming a 2D image in angular domain.

Abstract: A waveguide includes a mirror region, a non-mirror region, and a mitigation element. The mitigation element mitigates a phase difference between a first beam portion passing through the mirror region and a second beam portion passing through the non-mirror region. The mitigation element includes, for example, mirrors that are phase matched to the surrounding waveguide core, tapered or serrated mirrors, or phase compensating layers on the surface of the waveguide.

Abstract: A beam scanner and a display device is based on a photonic integrated circuit coupling light to a pair of opposed reflectors. One reflector is tiltable and has an opening through which the light is coupled, and the other reflector is configured to focus light, e.g. a concave reflector. A polarization folding configuration is used to cause the focused light propagate through the opening in the first reflector, get collimated by the second reflector, get scanned by the first reflector, and propagate through the second reflector to a pupil-replicating lightguide which provides multiple laterally offset parallel portions of the scanned beam.

Abstract: A device includes a light source to emit light and a light detector to receive the light emitted by the light source. The device may include a high voltage optical transformer and may be configured such that the light detector is laterally spaced away from the light source. In some architectures, the light source and the light detector may be arranged in a common plane. A photonic integrated circuit may be used to couple light emitted from the light source to the light detector.

Abstract: A waveguide assembly is provided. The waveguide assembly includes a pair of pupil-replicating waveguides. The first pupil-replicating waveguide is configured for receiving an input beam of image light and providing an intermediate beam comprising multiple offset portions of the input beam. The second pupil-replicating waveguide is configured for receiving the intermediate beam from the first pupil-replicating waveguide and providing an output beam comprising multiple offset portions of the intermediate beam. The input beam may be expanded by the waveguide assembly in such a manner that pupil gaps are reduced or eliminated.

Abstract: A display device with a transparent illuminator and an liquid crystal (LC) display panel is disclosed. The transparent illuminator includes a light source and a transparent lightguide, which may be based on a slab of transparent material with zigzag light propagation of the illuminating light in the slab and/or a transparent photonic integrated circuit with singlemode ridge waveguides for spreading the illuminating light in a plane parallel to the plane of LC display panel. The lightguide includes a plurality of grating out-couplers whose position is coordinated with positions of LC pixels for higher throughput. A reflective offset-to-angle optical element may be provided to form an image in angular domain through the LC panel and through the transparent illuminator, resulting in an overall compact and efficient display configuration.

Abstract: A display device includes a directional illuminator providing a light beam, a display panel downstream of a directional illuminator, for receiving and spatially modulating the light beam, and a beam redirecting module downstream of the display panel, for variably redirecting the spatially modulated light beam. Steering the illuminating light by the beam redirecting module enables one to steer the exit pupil of the display device to match the user's eye location(s).

Abstract: A film stack includes a plurality of first films and a plurality of second films alternately stacked. At least one second film of the plurality of second films includes a solid crystal including crystal molecules aligned in a predetermined alignment direction. At least one first film of the plurality of first films includes an alignment structure configured to at least partially align the crystal molecules of the solid crystal in the predetermined alignment direction.

Abstract: An illuminator for a display panel includes a light source for providing a light beam and a lightguide coupled to the light source for receiving and propagating the light beam along the substrate. The lightguide includes an array of out-coupling gratings that runs parallel to the array of pixels for out-coupling portions of the light beam from the lightguide such that the out-coupled light beam portions propagate through the substrate and produce an array of optical power density peaks at the array of pixels due to Talbot effect. A period of the array of peaks is an integer multiple of a pitch of the array of pixels.

Abstract: A waveguide illuminator includes an input waveguide, a waveguide splitter coupled to the input waveguide, and a waveguide array coupled to the waveguide splitter. The waveguide array includes an array of out-couplers out-coupling portions of the split light beam to form an array of out-coupled beam portions for illuminating a display panel. Locations of the array of out-couplers are coordinated with locations of individual pixels of the display panel, causing each light beam portion to propagate through a corresponding pixel of the display panel, thereby improving efficiency of light utilization by the display panel.