Metasurfaces for AR/VR light engine polarization control

Optical see-through head mounted display (HMD) is a key device for AR applications attracting significant interest of major industrial players. An AR display usually consists of a light engine and an optical combiner. The light engine serves as display image source, while the combiner delivers the displayed images to viewer’s eye and in the meantime transmits the environment light. Currently most of the AR-based HMDs utilize optical waveguide combiners in order to reduce the overall size and weight of the devices.  For diffractive waveguides which are more effective for one polarization, polarized light output from display panels is desirable. Micro-LED display technology has been considered a promising candidate for near-eye display owing to their advantages of high luminous intensity, high resolution, high contrast, fast response speed, long lifespan, and low power consumption. However, the realization of polarized and high-efficiency light extraction from micro-LED arrays is still a significant problem.

New solutions must be addressed this issue by creating a new metasurface integrated on the top surface of micro-LED. This metasurface will provide polarization control depending on light emission angle for full-color system.

The student will analyze possible solutions as reported in literature in view of the fabrication constrains in the imec fab. Subsequently, a model will be constructed for the selected  structures and the student will design the target structure using finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic simulations. The student will evaluate in detail the performance of designed structure based on the above-mentioned simulations.