The miniaturization of technology has enabled the exponential growth of audio sales in recent years. We expect that the smart eyewear will follow the same trend once ultra-compact displays become available for the mass market. Consumers of smart eyewear expect the devices to fulfill high standards on image quality, to exhibit a stylish and small form factor and to allow long charging intervals. TriLite designs and builds Trixel®, the world's smallest projection display for smart eyewear that exceeds key end-customer requirements and allows an outstanding user experience. TriLite’s Trixel® enables smart eyewear OEMs to drive exciting AR consumer devices to mass market.

tooz has developed a smart optical platform which provides customers with individualized Rx smart glasses. The real game changer is the unmatched end-to-end process from manufacturing to sales enabling tooz to serve consumers very conveniently online and at the POS while meeting price and cost expectations at the same time.

In this talk, we will present Maximus, a large FoV Near to Eye Display for consumer AR glasses. Maximus provides a 50deg diagonal FoV in a 1:1 aspect ratio. It is based on a 2D pupil expansion reflective waveguide combiner technology, and a compact projector module that can be easily integrated into the glasses frame. Maximus provides a high-resolution crisp image and significant advantages in the areas of power efficiency, color uniformity, light leakage, and glare free view of the physical world.

The end goal of any digital display technology is to achieve the level of immersion and quality to make the content "indistinguishable from reality". Since its creation, VividQ has made multiple advancements in the area of computer-generated holography (CGH), with the aim to deploy highly realistic holographic displays in consumer AR devices. Traditionally, CGH has had several challenges to overcome to become a mainstream display technology. Amongst others, these include field of view/eye-box trade-off, optical engine volume and most importantly, the computational complexity of hologram generation. In this talk, VividQ will describe recent innovations in the field that overcome those barriers thanks to newly generated IP and collaboration within the partner ecosystem, to bring CGH displays to the market.

Virtual and augmented reality are rapidly developing technologies, but their large-scale penetration will require breakthroughs in the optical architecture. Unlike electronics that has rapidly evolved and shrunk in size following Moore’s law, the appearance and the underlying physics of lenses have not changed much. In this talk, we would like to show a path to a future VR/AR platform based on the meta-optics. We show millimeter-scale-diameter, high-NA, sub-micron thin, metasurface-based lenses that achieve diffraction-limited achromatic focusing of the primary colors by exploiting constructive interference of light from multiple zones and dispersion engineering meta-atoms. We further demonstrate a VR system based on a home-built fiber scanning near-eye display..

This presentation will provide an insight into how these technologies are impacting VR and AR systems performance as well as an introduction to the design and manufacturing capabilities of ImagineOptix, a fast-growing company changing the world of optics. We are the pioneers of patterned liquid crystal optics and the world leader with over 17yrs of innovative solutions for optical and photonics challenges across a wide range of industries. Our world-class manufacturing facility and state-of-the-art robotically controlled sheet and roll-to-roll coating equipment brings these industry-leading optics to life. We enjoy working with like-minded companies who are interested in shaping the way people view and interact with the technology of the future.

This talk will discuss the developments at RICOH, a binocular type AR smart glasses using a thin plastic light guide plate with multi-stage micro mirror and an intermediate image temple optical system.Its total weight is less than 50g and load on the nose is less than 30 g and a field of view of 40 degrees.

Nreal is unveiling a new mixed-reality headset for enterprise users, and it is also making its Nreal Light model available in additional countries after launching it in Korea and Japan last year. Hear the latest!

The high demand for Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality are forecast to continue in the next five years. The adoption rate has been accelerated as the technologies became more valuable for companies to conduct business and operations during the pandemic. To realize the true potentials of AR, VR, MR, Edmund Passion will moderate a panel of industry experts and thought leaders on how the stakeholders in the ecosystem can work together on standardization that can cater to the multiple disciplines involved.

For over 50 years, materials engineering innovations have propelled the semiconductor industry to deliver the exponential capabilities that have transformed the world’s technology and economic landscape. These same capabilities are increasingly relevant to enable other global inflections including lightweight, miniaturized, high-performance light guides, flat optics, and full optical solutions. This talk explores the critical technology roadmap needs required to enable all-day wearable augmented reality glasses and how materials engineering can pave the way for ubiquitous adoption through high volume manufacturing solutions.

Lumentum is developing novel, integrated laser sources and packages to address the multitude of applications for IR illumination on a head-mounted display. This talk will outline the latest trends on bottom-emitting VCSELs with integrated lenses, packaged VCSELs with optics and small form factor VCSELs.

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More SCHOTT RealView® and more than RealView®. AR/MR content rarely fills a headset’s full field of view – the display subsystem processes sparse data. This then begs the question: why transmit full video frames and consume the power if you don’t need to? In this presentation, CP will introduce a new generation of microdisplay technology platform IntelliPixTM. The breakthrough design of IntelliPix only activates the pixels that need refreshing, which results in high image quality while drastically lowering display subsystem power. CP will also highlight the other technology features of the platform that enable pixels as small as 2.5µm while unlock the real potential in AR/MR for amplitude LCoS, emerging microLED and future phase-based holographic systems.

Innovation in 3D printing technology has led to the development of smart prescription lenses. 3D printing technology enables a waveguide, as well as prescription power, to be combined in a lightweight, thin lens which fits into conventional eyeglasses. The 3D printing technology for smart prescription lenses is unique. During the 3D printing process, the waveguide is fully encapsulated by the printed material, and prescription or other optical imaging effects are built around it. The 3D printing technology also allows for customized features to be included, such as an air gap. Due to the encapsulation of the waveguide in the printed material, it becomes fully protected and durable. Dust or humidity can’t reach the waveguide, nor can it easily break, scratch, or bend during normal use. Smart prescription lenses are commercially 3D printed with Luxexcel’s volume manufacturing platform. The platform creates large volumes of smart 3D printed lenses with wearers’ individualized prescription power specifications. Wearers are now able to use AR glasses as part of their everyday lives while having the ability to see their best.

In order to realize the ultimate goal of mass adoption for AR/MR devices, there are a number of critical optics challenges that still need to be solved. These challenges include making dramatic improvements in the field of view and the overall image quality of these devices. We believe Diffractive or holographic waveguides, that use ultra-highrefractive index (RI) wafers, coupled, with ultra-high RI materials such as our PixNIL™ nanoimprintable products, are the key technologies required to overcome these remaining optics challenges. Our ability to deliver ultra-high RI formulations > 1.90, with transparencies >95%, haze of <0.10, and robust mechanical properties, enables the designers of optical waveguides to deliver fields of view never before possible. The highly transparent and low haze characteristics of our PixClear® products allows the fullest amount of ambient light to passthrough the glass wafers, providing crystal clear images. As we have found no two waveguide designs are the same, our PixClear® Designer Compounds™ can be custom tailored to optimize the performance across a wide range of AR/MR device architectures and specifications, using both solvent-free and solvent containing formulations for use in nanoimprint and inkjet manufacturing processes.

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Wafer-level nanoimprint lithography (NIL) has increasingly become a key enabling technology to support new devices and applications across the photonic industry. Leading manufacturers of augmented reality devices, optical sensors and biomedical chips are already utilizing NIL and benefitting from the flexibility and efficiency of this technology. In particular, UV-NIL is capable to replicate most complex micro- and nano-scale structures without compromising the mass manufacturability. Together with the recent advances in the supply chain for high index resists and substrates the capabilities of this technology are emerging rapidly. As presented in this work, UV-NIL gives nowadays very large degree of freedom for best optical design and according performance.

Covestro developed a photopolymer film technology platform called Bayfol® HX to realize holographic optical elements light guiding and light management. Moritz will talk about the unique optical and mechanical characteristics which make them perfectly suitable for use in augmented reality such as Head-up-Displays (HUD) and Head-mounted-Displays (HMD) as free space combiner as well as in plastic waveguides and in transparent screens. As a film product, the replication of volume holographic optical elements can be carried out in highly cost-efficient roll to roll processes.

This presentation will be an introduction on Morrow's liquid crystal based tunable lens technology. With the core technology being only 0.5mm thick, integration in smart glasses and headsets beyond presbyopia correction applications can be considered.

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DigiLens is a leader in holographic waveguide displays and has developed solutions optimized for consumer AR applications. Alastair will provide an overview of DigiLens’ waveguide technology developments including holographic materials, waveguide architectures and manufacturing techniques developed to support consumer volumes of AR products.

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Kevin Curtis will moderate a panel on optical engines for AR with guest speakers from Facebook, JBD, Yole, Microsoft, and Omnivision. Here are some sample questions to the panel: What are the current optical engines technologies out in the market now and what do you think will be the technology of choice in seven years; What are the most important factors to consider when you chose the optical engine technology to go into a Facebook AR product; What were the reasons for choosing LCoS in your optical engine for your current product; What are the potential advantages of uLED approach for AR, What were the major reasons for Hololens to change from LCoS to laser scanning in your products.

There is the vision that AR HMDs will replace smartphones, but while smartphones have expanded into many aspects of everyday life, they were phones first. Starting with the application is key to prioritizing hardware development and making trade offs consumers will value. In this talk, we will go over what Niantic is doing to connect hardware, content, and AR-ready consumers together to accelerate AR development.

A number of technologies must be highly integrated to provide immersive XR experiences to users. This applies not only to XR hardware but also to content creation and distribution technologies. In this session, I will discuss an immersive XR workflow and introduce key technologies being developed or under development at Sony. Because of the diversity and depth of technology, one company cannot develop everything. This means that creating an immersive XR market requires collaboration among companies with powerful technologies and/or specific applications.

Today’s augmented reality systems deliver immersive experiences, but can manufacturers better address consumer needs through design? In addition to the social taxes that larger glasses create, heavy and bulky headsets prevent consumers from using them in everyday life. Hear Mike Wiemer discuss Mojo Lens, an augmented reality smart contact lens system with a unique design to address these challenges.

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Flat displays used in today’s stereoscopic 3D visualization technology threaten the acceptance of AR glasses due to the absence of accommodation cues. This talk will introduce the adverse effects of visually unnatural AR imagery and the possible solutions of it with digital light-field.

AR headset developer have failed to achieve the promised results. But why? Lack of accommodation is the fundamental flow of current AR headset technology. In this presentation you will hear how the design of AR optics work together with the tools you already have—your eyes.

Wearable devices like XR glasses and headsets can support medical interventions and prevent the progression of the diseases like dementia, and support patients suffering from ALS, anxiety or depression. Augmenting such headsets with sensors that capture brain activity, heart rate variability or skin conductivity can give access to discovering new biomarkers. These biomarkers help modelling, simulating, and finally offering novel datasets with physiological modalities recorded over extended periods of time on an everyday basis. Moreover, patients are often older adults, frail and reluctant to travel for complex exams in hospitals. Hence remotely deployed wearable systems offer a promising alternative to current practices. An ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only added to the burden of these patients and confirmed a need to accelerate the deployment of such systems for pre-clinical and clinical trials. In this talk we will discuss several examples of these systems as well as touching upon the use cases beyond healthcare.

When did you last say wow? In this talk I will introduce the Lume Pad, the world’s first switchable 3D Lightfield tablet. It combines the entire Google Play experience in WQHD resolution with Leia’s latest 3D Lightfield experiences. Designed for commercial and creative uses, it also provides powerful consumer features such as the ability to play a wide variety of games, capture, edit and share 3D lightfield pictures, display iPhone “portrait mode” pictures in 3D or convert regular 2D pictures to 3D in one-click. We will review the Nanotechnology and Computer Vision technologies powering the device and present key applications of mobile Lightfields that we think will drive mass adoption.

We've endured a global pandemic that has forced us to look at how we do absolutely everything. We've learned quite a lot, but also realized that we will not be going back to the way things were. Beyond simply improving safety, remote work tools and productivity, and building socially-distanced workstations, we have a much bigger opportunity to leverage XR to create a better version of our lives as a whole. We could even model out this Brave New World in VR, then create it IRL. Now the question is, if you could create your perfect work/life balance, what would it look like? Let's write a new story.

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What is the future of XR adoption going to be? Has the pandemic changed things for more demand, or less? Come listen to these leading thought leaders and researchers and get their view of the future.

The last 40+ years of investment in improving semiconductor performance has enabled a step function change in photonics. For this change to be commercially successful, performance must be matched with the ability to manufacture in high volume with high repeatability. To address this demand, Applied Materials is focused on enabling and producing the photonics solutions of the future with a focus on materials engineering, process development, and tools utilization. The ability to deliver light guides for demanding high-performance and high-volume opportunities requires development partners with the gamut of expertise found at Applied. Collaboration across the LASAR ecosystem is a key component to support the focus on developing technical design plans that will lead the way in accelerating your AR Optical designs. This talk will focus on the typical engagement process with Applied and our alliance partners to produce your Engineered Optic design.

In this keynote, Ash will talk about how emerging MR use cases impact MR hardware developments.

The RGB laser sources integrated with waveguide type combiner is introduced. Compact full color beam scanning modules are developed by using the RGB laser light sources. RGB laser beams are completely aligned and clear full color high-definition video images are obtained.

Introducing a laser scanning module for AR utilizing Mega1’s compact optical design and optimized manufacturing technology.

Quanta has been deployed in AR relative technical field from optical engine to smart glass for over 5 years. Being a professional ODM company over 30 years, Quanta is diving into the key parts of the NED, including establishing the optical component supply chain, precision active alignment, AR image quality qualification and tuning, binocular calibration. Believing LBS could be a powerful image engine in light weight NED, Quanta is building the relative capabilities. We commit to an overall service of AR glass and HMD. 1) Optical component sourcing, validation and qualification 2) Key process: MEMs DB/WB and active alignment for optics 3) Integrated calibration process: Laser power, and LBS calibration 4) Image qualification and tuning integrated with waveguide 5) Binocular NED calibration: alignment for 3D vision, brightness balance, and color temperature calibration 6) Prescription lens support.

Seattle Photonics: Optical Design Consideration for Scanning Displays

Building a 150° field of view, 95% transparency, high brightness, and eyeglasses form factor eyepieces AR glasses with integrated tracking; from the display, silicon photonics design and integration, customized mixed-signal ASIC, optics, system, algorithm, to mass manufacturing procedures; with customizable software applications and computer vision SDK for application developments.

AR Smart Glasses need to be comparable to normal glasses in respect of size, weight and esthetics. By using Laser Beam Scanning (LBS) the optical engine i.e. the image projector can be miniaturized down to sizes of 1cc only, allowing smart integration into the glasses temples. In contrast to 2D microdisplays like LCoS, DLP or µOLED the size of the LBS optical engine is not directly scaling with display performance i.e. luminance, field of view and angular resolution. So far single laser packages of TO-can type have been used for each color red, green and blue. We present a compact package containing the laser diodes chips of all three colors. This RGB laser module combines all the necessary features for a robust and small form factor light source (surface mountable, hermetically sealed etc.). By choosing appropriate power classes for the single mode laser diodes the module can be used for both waveguide combiner and direct retina scanning optical architectures. Beside the optical power also the geometrical arrangement of the colors can be optimized according to the needs of the system integrator.

ST is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sales of LBS solutions for Near-to-Eye displays, LiDAR and 3D scanning ToF applications. This presentation will be a deep dive in the key technologies at the core of LBS, enabling high performances, lightweight, small form-factor and low power consumption display projectors for all-day-wearable AR glasses in addition to the more immersive HMDs. We will introduce the ST MEMS ScanAR technology platform and product family: MEMS micromirrors, MEMS drivers, Laser Drivers and Video Processing Units, specifically designed for the today and future needs of AR.

AR devices are progressing towards all-day wearable glasses. Consumer market sets new requirements for diffractive waveguides and image sources. Weight and volume together with the form factor are critical factors for success. Laser beam scanning (LBS) based image sources are attractive candidates to minimize the projector volume without sacrificing the field of view. On the other hand, coherence of laser light and small beam size create new challenges for diffractive waveguides. Solutions enabling LBS compatible waveguides are discussed.

AR smartglasses may become the next Big Thing and have the potential to replace the smartphone until end of the decade. As part of a currently building ecosystem for AR solutions OQmented contributes innovative MEMS mirror based laser scanning concepts and technologies. To meet the challenging high performance and compactness requirements of LBS light engines for AR smartglasses OQmented applies a single 2D-MEMS mirror that oscillates in vacuum. The operation in vacuum effectively minimizes power consumption and amplifies the oscillation amplitudes of the two resonant mirror axes leading to a high resolution display module of very compact size. Large eyebox, high brightness and high contrast are achieved when combining OQmented's LBS unit with diffractive waveguides.

Brighterwave, poLight, ST Micro-electronic are collaborating to create new solution for new laser scanning devices. By combining R-G-B BrighterWave laser and poLight polymer optic, ultracompact laser projection concepts have been created. Indeed, we believe that by combining the high performances of the laser and new concept of polymer scanning mirror, 2D laser scanning with high luminance, contrast, low power consumption, small size (sub 5mm cubic all included), over 60 deg scan bidirectional angle capability. We will present a potential embodiment/concept as well as describe the advantages/drawback with respect to projection display or retina display for AR-VR glass.

AR users expect to put on AR Glasses and instantly get an augmented experience. To enable this ease-of-use, AR glasses designers create a large eyebox, using exit pupil expansion or replication. These brute force approaches are inherently inefficient in power consumption and challenged in achieving high image quality. EyeWay's much more efficient approach is to move a small exit pupil aligned with the visual axis of an eye. This requires a low latency accurate eye tracker, low persistency light engine, and also an efficient exit pupil actuator. This approach allows power efficient AR Glasses with large eyebox, high brightness, high contrast, wide color gamut, dynamic focus, large perceived field of view, and retinal resolution image.