Displays based on dynamic phase-only holography

Abstract

Static holographic displays of high quality are works of art. We are creating commercial displays using dynamic phase-only spatial light modulators (SLMs). The main advantages of this approach are light efficiency and fault tolerance. When polarized lasers are used as the illumination source, there is no requirement for polarizers in the light engine. Moreover, the illumination beam can be directed towards bright points of the image and away from dark regions. Due to the many-to-one correspondence between the pixels in the SLM and the points in the image, faults in high complexity SLMs will be annealed in the image. Compared with normal displays where etendue is of overriding importance for light efficiency, holographic displays favor small pixel devices. Smaller pixel devices generate a larger reconstruction which improves the etendue for a second stage imaging system.