Aberration-free pupil steerable Maxwellian display for augmented reality with cholesteric liquid crystal holographic lenses

Abstract

Maxwellian displays offer unique features like always-in-focus quality, high efficiency, and large field-of-view, but its small eyebox remains a major challenge for augmented reality. To enlarge the eyebox, pupil steering is a promising approach. However, previous pupil steering methods generally rely on changing the incident light angle on the lens coupler, which results in serious aberrations. In this Letter, we demonstrate a pupil steerable see-through Maxwellian display incorporating novel cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) holographic lenses. By actively modulating the polarization state of the incident light, we can schematically choose which holographic lens to function, which fundamentally eliminates the aberrations.