SBIR Phase I: Metasurface optical elements for augmented/mixed-reality smart glasses

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是展示一种变革性的增强/混合现实智能玻璃，以实现新的沉浸式数字空间。该技术的高性能实现将用于增强用户对信息和图像的感知和理解。通过这些用户自然增强/混合现实智能眼镜，可以在智能手机之外增强远程和虚拟的人与人之间的互动。这种新一代的移动显示器与当今可用的在线内容以及已经建立的网络（包括在线零售、游戏、体育沉浸、娱乐和社交网络）更加无缝地连接在一起。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目为智能手机以外的增强/混合现实数字空间开发智能眼镜。目前的智能眼镜通常基于传统的全息或衍射光学元件，这些元件具有显着的物理和性能限制，阻碍了它们的广泛采用。本项目开发超表面波导，以实现增强/混合现实波导的分辨率，视场，效率和光学元件集成的关键性能指标。超表面波导经过精心调整，符合高性能规格，跨越全色域，易于制造和制造缩放。该系统重量轻，结构紧凑，与现有光源集成。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to demonstrate a transformative augmented/mixed-reality smart glass to enable new immersive digital spaces. The high-performance implementation of the technology developed here will be used to augment users' perception and understanding of information and images. The remote and virtual human-to-human interactions can be enhanced through these user-natural augment/mixed-reality smart glasses beyond the smartphone. This next-generation mobile display more seamlessly interfaces with online content available today and in already established networks, ranging from online retail, gaming, sports immersion, entertainment, and social networks.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project develops smart glasses for augmented/mixed-reality digital spaces beyond the smartphone. Current smart glasses are typically based on conventional holographic or diffractive optical elements which have significant physical and performance limitations, preventing their wide-spread adoption. This project develops metasurface waveguides to achieve the key performance metrics of resolution, field-of-view, efficiency and optical element integration in augmented/mixed-reality waveguides. The metasurface waveguide is finely tuned for high performance specifications collectively, across the full color gamut, and with ease of fabrication and manufacturing scaling. The system is light weight, compact, and integrates with current light sources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.