Holographic displays have gained unprecedented attention as next-generation virtual and augmented reality applications with recent achievements in the realization of a high-contrast image through computer-generated holograms (CGHs). However, these holograms show a high energy concentration in a limited angular spectrum, whereas the holograms with uniformly distributed angular spectrum suffer from a severe speckle noise in the reconstructed images. In this study, we claim that these two physical phenomena attributed to the existing CGHs significantly limit the support of accommodation cues, which is known as one of the biggest advantages of holographic displays. To support the statement, we analyze and evaluate various CGH algorithms with contrast gradients - a change of contrast over the change of the focal diopter of the eye - simulated based on the optical configuration of the display system and human visual perception models. We first introduce two approaches to improve monocular accommodation response in holographic viewing experience; optical and computational approaches to provide holographic images with sufficient contrast gradients. We design and conduct user experiments with our prototype of holographic near-eye displays, validating the deficient support of accommodation cues in the existing CGH algorithms and demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed solutions with significant improvements on accommodative gains.

A commercial head-mounted display (HMD) for virtual reality (VR) presents three-dimensional imagery with a fixed focal distance. The VR HMD with a fixed focus can cause visual discomfort to an observer. In this article, we propose a novel design of a compact VR HMD supporting near-correct focus cues over a wide depth of field (from 18 cm to optical infinity). The proposed HMD consists of a low-resolution binary backlight, a liquid crystal display panel, and focus-tunable lenses. In the proposed system, the backlight locally illuminates the display panel that is floated by the focus-tunable lens at a specific distance. The illumination moment and the focus-tunable lens' focal power are synchronized to generate focal blocks at the desired distances. The distance of each focal block is determined by depth information of three-dimensional imagery to provide near-correct focus cues. We evaluate the focus cue fidelity of the proposed system considering the fill factor and resolution of the backlight. Finally, we verify the display performance with experimental results.

We propose a new thin and flat virtual reality (VR) display design using a Fresnel lenslet array, a Fresnel lens, and a polarization-based optical folding technique. The proposed optical system has a wide field of view (FOV) of 102°x102°, a wide eye-box of 8.8 mm, and an ergonomic eye-relief of 20 mm. Simultaneously, only 3.3 mm of physical distance is required between the display panel and the lens, so that the integrated VR display can have a compact form factor like sunglasses. Moreover, since all lenslet of the lenslet array is designed to operate under on-axis condition with low aberration, the discontinuous pupil swim distortion between the lenslets is hardly observed. In addition, all on-axis lenslets can be designed identically, reducing production cost, and even off-the-shelf Fresnel optics can be used. In this paper, we introduce how we design system parameters and analyze system performance. Finally, we demonstrate two prototypes and experimentally verify that the proposed VR display system has the expected performance while having a glasses-like form factor.

In this paper, we present a concept for speckle reduction using optical superposition instead of temporal superposition. The proposed speckle reduction method does not contain any mechanical movement nor time-multiplexing technique. Therefore, the system is stable and free from the frame rate degradation or additional computation load. In addition, the angle diversity method is adopted with the proposed method to intensify the speckle reduction. In order to apply the angle diversity method, the required minimum angle difference is analyzed theoretically. To realize the proposed speckle reduction concept, the system is implemented with practical optical components. The system includes an echelon, which is a stair-shaped glass and a static diffuser. The echelon is employed to decrease the spatial coherence of the incident beam. The static diffuser imposes the band-limited random phases on each of the split beams that have passed through the echelon. Also, the static diffuser is used to combine mutually incoherent split beams into a single speckle-reduced beam. The proposed speckle-reduced light source is applied to the holographic display to demonstrate the speckle reduction effect. Experimental results show that the speckle contrast of the reconstructed image is reduced by 55%.

Since 1960s, digital holography (DH) has been developed significantly as an exquisite optical sensing technique with its computational interpretation. Recent advances in the image sensor and the coherent light source have suggested the possibility of using DH in portable form that can be utilized in industrial fields. Field of view (FOV) should be sufficiently wide and the system be simple for successful landing of DH on the industrial market. To embody the possibility, in this paper, we present a method for implementing off-axis reflective DH using a single diffraction grating. Beam splitter and mirror in the conventional off-axis DH are replaced with a single diffraction grating. This replacement enables the implementation of simple interferometer while maintaining the performance of the holography. In addition, we apply the multiplexed illumination method to enhance space-bandwidth product of off-axis hologram. Using the wavelength dependence of the diffraction grating, the FOV can be doubled without additional optical element. We demonstrate the proposed method by three holographic imaging experiments with two laser diodes. The prototype provides lateral resolution of 19.69$\mu$m with the FOV of 6.85 mm × 8.72 mm. The FOV is 1.9 times wider than the image sensor area of 6.85 mm × 4.59 mm. Overall size of the prototype is 12 cm × 17 cm × 5 cm, showing the suitability of implementation to the various industrial fields.

Over the past century, as display evolved, people have demanded more realistic and immersive experiences in theaters. Here, we present a tomographic projector for a volumetric display system that accommodates large audiences while providing a uniform experience. The tomographic projector combines high-speed digital micromirror and three spatial light modulators to refresh projection images at 7200 Hz. With synchronization of the tomographic projector and wearable focus-tunable eyepieces, the presented system can reconstruct 60 focal planes for volumetric representation right in front of audiences. We demonstrate proof of concept of the proposed system by implementing a miniaturized theater environment. Experimentally, we show that this system has wide expressible depth range with focus cues from 25 cm to optical infinity with sufficient tolerance while preserving high resolution and contrast. We also confirm that the proposed system provides uniform experience in a wide range of viewing zone through simulation and experiment. Additionally, the tomographic projector has capability to equalize vergence state that varies in conventional stereoscopic 3D theater according to viewing position as well as interpupillary distance. This study is concluded with thorough discussion about tomographic projectors in terms of challenges and research issues.

Holographic displays have great potential to realize mixed reality by modulating the wavefront of light in a fundamental manner. As a computational display, holographic displays offer a large degree of freedom, such as focus cue generation and vision correction. However, the limited bandwidth of spatial light modulator imposes an inherent trade-off relationship between the field of view and eye-box size. Thus, we demonstrate the first practical eye-box expansion method for a holographic near-eye display. Instead of providing an intrinsic large exit-pupil, we shift the optical system's exit-pupil to cover the expanded eye-box area with pupil-tracking. For compact implementation, a pupil-shifting holographic optical element (PSHOE) is proposed that can reduce the form factor for exit-pupil shifting. A thorough analysis of the design parameters and display performance are provided. In particular, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the incorporation of the holographic optical element into a holographic display system. The influence of holographic optical elements on the intrinsic exit-pupil and pupil switching is revealed by numerical simulation and Wigner distribution function analysis.

We introduce an augmented reality near-eye display dubbed "Retinal 3D." Key features of the proposed display system are as follows: Focus cues are provided by generating the pupil-tracked light field that can be directly projected onto the retina. Generated focus cues are valid over a large depth range since laser beams are shaped for a large depth of field (DOF). Pupil-tracked light field generation significantly reduces the needed information/computation load. Also, it provides "dynamic eye-box" which can be a break-through that overcome the drawbacks of retinal projection-type displays. For implementation, we utilized a holographic optical element (HOE) as an image combiner, which allowed high transparency with a thin structure. Compared with current augmented reality displays, the proposed system shows competitive performances of a large field of view (FOV), high transparency, high contrast, high resolution, as well as focus cues in a large depth range. Two prototypes are presented along with experimental results and assessments. Analysis on the DOF of light rays and validity of focus cue generation are presented as well. Combination of pupil tracking and advanced near-eye display technique opens new possibilities of the future augmented reality.

We propose a see-through additive light field display as a novel type of compressive light field display. We utilize holographic optical elements (HOEs) as transparent additive layers. The HOE layers are almost free from diffraction unlike spatial light modulator layers, which makes this additive light field display more advantageous when modifying the number of layers, thickness, and pixel density compared with conventional compressive displays. Meanwhile, the additive light field display maintains advantages of compressive light field displays. The proposed additive light field display shows bright and full-color volumetric images in high definition. In addition, users can view real-world scenes beyond the displays. Hence, we expect that our method can contribute to the realization of augmented reality. Here, we describe implementation of a prototype additive light field display with two additive layers, evaluate the performance of transparent HOE layers, describe several results of display experiments, discuss the diffraction effect of spatial light modulators, and analyze the ability of the additive light field display to express uncorrelated light fields.

Recently, various 3D imaging devices and applications have been developed and also commercialized. In this paper, we specially discuss lens array imaging and incoherent digital holography. In lens array imaging, it is possible to capture the light field information object through the lens array, and the depth information can be extracted by the captured light field information. Also the captured information can be visually reconstructed by the 3D images in the manner of integral imaging or light field display. Incoherent digital holography is capable of recording the wavefront information from incoherent light, which was impossible in conventional digital holography. There are various remarkable applications including the natural light holographic camera or the holographic fluorescence microscopy using incoherent digital holography, and also acquired hologram can be used to implement holographic display since the original wavefront information also includes the depth information of the object. We expect that the integral imaging and incoherent digital holography can be applied to various fields, such as photography, video systems, biomedical area, and industrial measurement, according to the characteristics of the applications.