Ultrathin wide-angle large-area digital 3D holographic display using a non-periodic photon sieve

Abstract

Holographic displays can provide a 3D visual experience to multiple users without requiring special glasses. By precisely tailoring light fields, holographic displays could resemble realistic 3D scenes with full motion parallax and continuous depth cues. However, available holographic displays are unable to generate such scenes given practical limitations in wavefront modulation. In fact, the limited diffraction angle and small number of pixels of current wavefront modulators derive into a 3D scene with small size and narrow viewing angle. We propose a flat-panel wavefront modulator capable of displaying large dynamic holographic images with wide viewing angle. Specifically, an ultrahigh-capacity non-periodic photon sieve, which diffracts light at wide angles, is combined with an off-the-shelf liquid crystal display panel to generate holographic images. Besides wide viewing angle and large screen size, the wavefront modulator provides multi-colour projection and a small form factor, which suggests the possible implementation of holographic displays on thin devices.

3D holographic displays still face many challenges such as small viewing angle and image size. Here the authors present a scalable method for displaying large holographic images with a wide viewing angle using a wide-angle diffracting element in a flat panel; a non-periodic photon sieve.