Augmented reality (AR) merges digital images with our real-world surroundings. However, AR goes beyond just gaming; it holds the potential to revolutionize surgeries and the technology behind self-driving vehicles. To facilitate the integration of this technology into everyday personal devices, researchers have unveiled a method to merge two optical technologies into one high-resolution AR display. They have created a prototype of eyeglasses that improves image quality with an advanced computer algorithm designed to eliminate distortions.
Augmented reality (AR) merges digital images with our real-world surroundings. However, AR goes beyond just gaming; it holds the potential to revolutionize surgeries and the technology behind self-driving vehicles. To facilitate the integration of this technology into everyday personal devices, researchers have unveiled a method to merge two optical technologies into one high-resolution AR display. They have created a prototype of eyeglasses that improves image quality with an advanced computer algorithm designed to eliminate distortions.
Current AR systems, often found in heavy goggles or car head-up displays, depend on portable optical components. However, miniaturizing the usual four-lens AR systems to the size of eyeglasses typically decreases the image quality and limits the visual field. Youguang Ma and their team may have found a way to resolve this issue by combining two optical technologies — a metasurface and a refractive lens — with a microLED display that features arrays of small green LEDs for image projection to create a compact, single-lens hybrid AR system.
The metasurface in their display consists of an extremely thin and lightweight silicon nitride film that has been etched with a specific pattern. This pattern is responsible for shaping and focusing the light emitted from the green microLEDs. Following this, a black-and-green image is created on a refractive lens made from a synthetic polymer, which enhances the image by sharpening it and minimizing aberrations. Ultimately, the final image is projected from the system and layered onto an object or a screen. To boost the resolution of the projected image, Ma and their colleagues applied computer algorithms that detect minor flaws in the optical system and make corrections before the light exits the microLED.
The team integrated their hybrid AR display into eyeglasses and assessed the prototype’s effectiveness with computer image enhancement techniques. The images projected from the single-lens hybrid system exhibited distortion of less than 2% over a 30° field of view, achieving image quality comparable to current commercial AR platforms that use four lenses. They confirmed that their preprocessing algorithm enhanced a reprojected image of a red panda, making it 74.3% structurally similar to the original image — a 4% increase from the uncorrected projection. With further advancements, the researchers believe this platform can evolve from displaying just green to offering full-color images, paving the way for a new range of mainstream AR glasses.
