Large Depth-of-Field, Large Eyebox, and Wide Field-of-View Freeform-Holographic Augmented Reality Near-Eye Display

Augmented reality (AR) presents virtual information seamlessly integrated with real-world scenes, advancing information interaction for human society. Traditional AR displays struggle to simultaneously achieve large depth-of-field (DOF), large viewing eyebox, and wide field-of-view (FOV), which limits their practical applicability. Here, a novel AR near-eye display scheme is proposed that addresses these limitations, providing a large DOF, expansive eyebox, and wide FOV. The DOF is largely extended at each viewpoint on the eye pupil plane by directly projecting light rays onto the retina. Meanwhile, numerous viewpoints are generated in space to significantly expand the viewing eyebox, with each viewpoint independently controllable to dynamically track eye movements in real time without the need for mechanical steering parts. Freeform and holographic optics are deeply cooperated in the proposed off-axis display for achieving high performance over the full FOV, eyebox and DOF range, as well as compact form factor. A display system prototype is built, and the display results, featuring a DOF from 0.25 to 10 m, a 50° wide FOV, and a 10 mm×10 mm viewing eyebox, along with good optical see-through viewing, demonstrate the effectiveness and advancement of the proposed scheme, offering valuable insights for the future design of AR displays.