Most common designs of augmented and mixed reality (AR & MR) systems incorporate lightguide designs with surfaces that contain micro- and nanostructured regions (gratings) for coupling and pupil expansion purposes. Many of the complex effects which influence the final quality of the device (for example, crucial aspects like how good the uniformity is in the eyebox for the different field-of-view modes that describe the digital image) have their roots in physical optics: polarization (initially of the source, as well as how the polarization changes as the light propagates through the device), coherence, diffraction, etc.
With its Light Guide Toolbox, the fast physical optics software VirtualLab Fusion provides the optical engineer with all the necessary tools to tackle the modeling and design of this type of device. To demonstrate its capabilities we showcase here two examples of simulations of different AR & MR setups.
Lightguide with Butterfly Eye-Pupil Expander based on Patent by Microsoft
This use case shows a lightguide system with a so-called “butterfly pupil expansion”, based on patent US9791703B1 by Microsoft.
Modeling of a “HoloLens 1”-Type Layout with Light Guide Component
This use case demonstrates the modeling of a device of a simple “HoloLens 1”-type layout with a Light Guide component capable of guiding light with a 32° × 18° FoV.
