Maxwellian near-eye display with an expanded eyebox

Abstract

Maxwellian view systems can be employed to circumvent the vergence-accommodation conflict in near-eye displays (NEDs), which directly project images onto the retina regardless of the human eye's depth of focus. However, Maxwellian view optics typically have a limited eyebox, which prevents broader applications of this architecture in NEDs. Here, we demonstrate a thin-film two-dimensional beam deflector composed of multi-twist broad-band Pancharatnam-Berry deflectors to mitigate this limitation via eyebox replication. Based on experimental validation, our proposed design can display always-focused full-color images within a 9 mm × 9 mm eyebox and thus mitigate the limitation of conventional Maxwellian displays while adding negligible weight and volume.