See-through holographic retinal projection display concept

The field of near-eye see-through devices has recently received significant media attention and financial investments. However, devices demonstrated to date suffer from significant practical limitations resulting from the conventional optics on which they are based. Potential manufacturers seek to surpass these limitations using novel optical schemes. In this paper, we propose such a potentially disruptive optical technology that may be used for this application. Conceptually, our optical scheme is situated at the interface of geometric incoherent refractive imaging and radiative coherent diffractive imaging. The generation of an image occurs as a result of data transmission through a two-dimensional network of optical waveguides that addresses a distribution of switchable holographic elements. The device acts as a wavefront generator, and the eye is the only optical system in which the image is formed. In the following we describe the device concept and characteristics, as well as the results of initial simulations.