Apple patents AR display tech that spreads light evenly across the eye
Apple describes a display design for augmented reality glasses that uses a waveguide to send light to the user's eye. It includes specific layers and mirrors that split and redirect the light to create multiple copies of the image, ensuring the brightness is uniform across the entire field of view.
In the filing’s own words
A display may include a waveguide, projector that produces light, and an input coupler that couples the light into the waveguide. To maximize luminance uniformity, the display may include structures that perform one-dimensional pupil replication on the image light in a direction orthogonal to the direction of propagation. The structures may include a substrate stacked on the waveguide and having a pupil replication layer and light redirecting layer, may include crossed gratings that direct portions of the light to two pupil replication layers that are disposed within or on the waveguide, or may include an array of micromirrors in the projector that diffract illumination light in different diffractive modes to perform one-dimensional pupil replication.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. An electronic device comprising: a waveguide; a substrate mounted to the waveguide, wherein the substrate has a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, the substrate being configured to receive light through the second surface; a first layer disposed between the first surface of the substrate and the waveguide and configured to receive the light through the substrate, wherein the first layer comprises a surface relief grating or a louvered mirror; a second layer disposed on the second surface of the substrate, wherein the first layer is configured to redirect the light towards the second layer at a plurality of output angles, the second layer being configured to redirect the light from the plurality of output angles into the waveguide through the first surface; and an input coupler configured to receive the light from the second layer and configured to couple the light into the waveguide.
Facts
- Company
- Apple (Apple Inc.)
- Official title
- Display devices with one-dimensional pupil replication
- Patent number
- US12754424B1
- Application number
- 18468425
- Filed
- Sep 15, 2023
- Granted
- Oct 6, 2026
- Inventors
- 4
- Claims
- 19
Classified under
G02B 27/0172 Physics & computingG02B 2027/0118 Physics & computingG02B 2027/0174 Physics & computingMore from Apple in AR, VR & displays
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.