Display and Imaging Systems for AR and VR Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Virtual reality and augmented reality are known as the metaverse, which appears to be one of the most popular terms adopted over the internet recently, and cater for the next evolution of social interactions. VR and AR head-mounted displays (HMDs) provide the basic infrastructure for the metaverse. VR-HMDs provide a total immersive experience, while AR-HMDs enable users to see real scenes of the outside world and visualize virtual information generated by a computer at any time and location, making them suitable for a wide range of applications. Recently, many public policies have regarded VR/AR technologies (including VR/AR HMDs) as a key technology; for example, the updated list of Critical and Emerging Technologies by the NSTC includes VR/AR technologies.

HMDs include many new technologies, including micro-displays or medium-sized displays and optics solutions. Micro-displays include Micro-OLED, LCoS, DLP, Micro-LED, and MEMS-based laser scanning technologies, while optics solutions include freeform optics, surface-relief grating waveguides, volume holographic grating and polarization volume grating waveguides, geometrical waveguides, and so on. VR optics solutions include aspherical, Fresnel and pancake solutions. The final goal of these different solutions is to develop an ultra-thin and lightweight display with suitable specifications for different applications. The most sought after display is the glass-form factor VR/AR display.

Both VR- and AR-HMDs consist of display and optics solutions. VR HMDs usually employ aspherical or fresnel optical elements with medium-sized LCD displays, and ultra-thin solutions to the pancake type with smaller-sized LCD displays (2~3 inch) or OLED displays (~1 inch) have become more and more popular recently. For AR-HMDs, the optical see-through combiners and display devices are used to combine real-world and virtual-world objects that are visible to the human eye. The existing AR-HMD optical solutions employed for optical combiners are divided into three categories: optical solutions based on macro-, micro-, and nanooptics. Specifically, for traditional micro-optics solutions, aspherical and freeform optics and geometrical reflective waveguide solutions are used. Micro-optics solutions include the planar diffractive waveguide that has been widely adopted in AR-HMDs due to its distinguished trade-off between the form factor, thickness, and optical see-through effect. The diffractive waveguides can be further divided into surface relief grating (SRG) waveguides, volume hologram grating (VHG) waveguides, and polarization volume grating (PVG) waveguides. The nanooptics solutions include the metalens or metasurface reflector type technologies, among others. Micro-displays, including Micro-OLED, LCoS, DLP, Micro-LED, and MEMS-based laser scanning technologies, are also very important for AR-HMDS. To promote and accelerate the development of the VR/AR industry, it is very important to discuss the bottlenecks and imagine the future development trends in the case of VR/AR HMD optical solutions and display technologies.

To highlight the latest research progress in VR/AR HMD techniques, including microdisplay technologies and VR/AR optical solution design theories, methods, manufacturing, measurement, and precision adjustment, we are launching this Special Issue entitled Display and Imaging Systems for AR and VR Applications in October 2022. We invite you to make a contribution to this issue.

This Special Issue invites research and review articles related to the scientific understanding of VR/AR near-eye displays, technological innovation in VR/AR HMDs or near-eye display methods, and related micro-display technologies. Application areas of interest include, but are not limited to, virtual reality, augmented reality, wearable displays, and entertainment.

Prof. Dr. Dewen Cheng
Prof. Dr. Yongtian Wang
Dr. Yan Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• micro-display technology
• freeform VR/AR HMD optics solutions
• waveguide HMD optics solutions (surface relief grating waveguide, geometrical reflective waveguide, polarization volume grating, holographic volume waveguide)
• light Field AR/VR display
• holographic AR/VR display
• accommodation and convergence
• pancake VR
• applications of AR/VR optics