Novel developments in computational spectropolarimeter.

Compared to conventional bulky spectropolarimeters, computational spectropolarimeters which reconstruct light-field information such as polarization and spectrum in a compact form factor, are critical equipment enabling new applications. The key component of a computational spectropolarimeter is a tunable light-field modulator, in which liquid crystal-based device is a promising candidate. By varying the applied voltage, the tunable liquid crystal metasurface can modulate the phase and spectral information of the incident light, and after a few trials, this important information can be decoded mathematically. Such a novel approach paves the foundation for developing compact and low-cost spectropolarimetric imaging devices with widespread applications in biomedical imaging, remote sensing, and optical communications.

Advanced liquid crystal devices for augmented reality and virtual reality displays: principles and applications.

Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and photonic devices play a pivotal role to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The recently emerging high-dynamic-range (HDR) mini-LED backlit LCDs significantly boost the image quality and brightness and reduce the power consumption for VR displays. Such a light engine is particularly attractive for compensating the optical loss of pancake structure to achieve compact and lightweight VR headsets. On the other hand, high-resolution-density, and high-brightness liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) is a promising image source for the see-through AR displays, especially under high ambient lighting conditions. Meanwhile, the high-speed LCoS spatial light modulators open a new door for holographic displays and focal surface displays. Finally, the ultrathin planar diffractive LC optical elements, such as geometric phase LC grating and lens, have found useful applications in AR and VR for enhancing resolution, widening field-of-view, suppressing chromatic aberrations, creating multiplanes to overcome the vergence-accommodation conflict, and dynamic pupil steering to achieve gaze-matched Maxwellian displays, just to name a few. The operation principles, potential applications, and future challenges of these advanced LC devices will be discussed.

Tailoring the light distribution of micro-LED displays with a compact compound parabolic concentrator and an engineered diffusor.

We propose a novel optical design to tailor the angular distribution of a micro-LED (µLED) display system and use vehicle display as an example to illustrate the design principles. The display system consists of a µLED array with a tailored LED structure, a small formfactor compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) system, and a functional engineered diffusor. It provides high efficiency, high peak brightness, and small formfactor. In the design process, a mix-level optical simulation model, including the angular distribution of polarized emission dipole (dipole emission characteristics), Fabry-Perot cavity effect (wave optics), and light propagation process (ray optics), is established to analyze the angular distribution of µLEDs. Such an optical design process from dipole emission to display radiation pattern can be extended to other µLED display systems for different applications.

Augmented reality and virtual reality displays: emerging technologies and future perspectives.

With rapid advances in high-speed communication and computation, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are emerging as next-generation display platforms for deeper human-digital interactions. Nonetheless, to simultaneously match the exceptional performance of human vision and keep the near-eye display module compact and lightweight imposes unprecedented challenges on optical engineering. Fortunately, recent progress in holographic optical elements (HOEs) and lithography-enabled devices provide innovative ways to tackle these obstacles in AR and VR that are otherwise difficult with traditional optics. In this review, we begin with introducing the basic structures of AR and VR headsets, and then describing the operation principles of various HOEs and lithography-enabled devices. Their properties are analyzed in detail, including strong selectivity on wavelength and incident angle, and multiplexing ability of volume HOEs, polarization dependency and active switching of liquid crystal HOEs, device fabrication, and properties of micro-LEDs (light-emitting diodes), and large design freedoms of metasurfaces. Afterwards, we discuss how these devices help enhance the AR and VR performance, with detailed description and analysis of some state-of-the-art architectures. Finally, we cast a perspective on potential developments and research directions of these photonic devices for future AR and VR displays.

Doubling the optical efficiency of VR systems with a directional backlight and a diffractive deflection film.

We demonstrate an approach to double the optical efficiency of virtual reality (VR) systems based on a directional backlight and a diffractive deflection film (DDF). The directional backlight consists of a commercial collimated light-emitting diode (LED) array and a two-layer privacy film, while the DDF is a three-domain Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase lens. Such a PB phase lens was fabricated by the zone exposure and spin-coating method. The focal length of each domain is designed according to the imaging optics of the VR system. Our approach works well in both Fresnel and "pancake" VR systems. We also build the corresponding models in LightTools, and the simulation results are in good agreement with experiment. In experiment, we achieved a 2.25x optical efficiency enhancement for both systems, which agrees with the simulation results (2.48x for Fresnel and 2.44x for "pancake" systems) well. Potential application for high efficiency VR displays is foreseeable.

Halo effect in high-dynamic-range mini-LED backlit LCDs.

We develop an optical model including the glare effect in the human vision system to analyze the halo effect of high-dynamic-range (HDR) mini-LED backlit liquid crystal displays (LCDs). In our model, an objective function is first introduced to evaluate the severity of the halo effect with different image contents. This function is further combined with PSNR to establish a new evaluation metric to analyze the image quality affected by the halo effect. A subjective visual experiment is also conducted to verify the above-mentioned evaluation metrics. In addition, we analyze the influence of ambient environment (viewing angle and ambient light illuminance) on the halo effect. After considering the requirements on local dimming zones, dynamic contrast ratio, gamma shift, and color shift for practical applications, we find that fringe-field-switching mode is a strong contender for the mini-LED backlit LCD system.

Enhancing the Efficiency of Color Conversion Micro-LED Display with a Patterned Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Polymer Film.

Color-converted micro-light-emitting diode (micro-LED) displays with wide color gamut, high ambient contrast ratio, and fast response time are emerging as a potentially disruptive technology. However, due to limited optical density and thickness of the color-conversion film, the blue light leakage and low color-conversion efficiency still hinder their widespread applications. In this paper, we demonstrate a patterned cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) polymer film with two special optical functionalities. On the green and red sub-pixels, the corresponding planar CLC texture acts as a distributed Bragg reflector for the blue light, which in turn improves the color conversion efficiency and expands the color gamut. On the blue sub-pixels, the corresponding focal-conic CLC texture acts as light scattering medium, which helps to reduce the angular color shift. Further analysis reveals that the patterned CLC film can alleviate the crosstalk between green and blue color filters. Therefore, compared to the display system without such a CLC film, our proposed device structure increases the color conversion efficiency by 143% (at ~90% Rec. 2020) and reduces average angular color shift Δu'v' from 0.03 to 0.018 at the viewing angle with the most severe color shift. Such a patterned CLC film is applicable to all kinds of color-conversion display systems, including organic and inorganic phosphors.

High dynamic range head-up displays.

We demonstrate a full-color high dynamic range head-up display (HUD) based on a polarization selective optical combiner, which is a three-layer cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) film. Such a CLC film has three reflection bands corresponding to the three primary colors. A key component in our HUD system is a polarization modulation layer (PML) consisting of a twisted-nematic LC polarization rotator sandwiched by two quarter-wave plates. This spatially switchable PML generates opposite polarization states for the displayed image and its background area. Thus, this optical combiner reflects the displayed image to the observer and transmits the background noise, making the black state darker. Furthermore, by matching the reflection spectra of the optical combiner with the colors of the display panel, the bright state gets brighter. Therefore, both bright state and dark state are improved simultaneously. Our experimental results show that the dark state of the new HUD is lowered by 3x and bright state is boosted by 2.5x. By applying antireflection coating to the optical components and optimizing the degree of polarization, our simulation results indicate that the dynamic range can be improved by ∼50x (17 dB). Potential applications of the proposed HUDs for improving the driver's safety are foreseeable.

Mini-LED, Micro-LED and OLED displays: present status and future perspectives.

Presently, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are two dominant flat panel display technologies. Recently, inorganic mini-LEDs (mLEDs) and micro-LEDs (µLEDs) have emerged by significantly enhancing the dynamic range of LCDs or as sunlight readable emissive displays. "mLED, OLED, or µLED: who wins?" is a heated debatable question. In this review, we conduct a comprehensive analysis on the material properties, device structures, and performance of mLED/µLED/OLED emissive displays and mLED backlit LCDs. We evaluate the power consumption and ambient contrast ratio of each display in depth and systematically compare the motion picture response time, dynamic range, and adaptability to flexible/transparent displays. The pros and cons of mLED, OLED, and µLED displays are analysed, and their future perspectives are discussed.

The effect of colonic tissue electrical stimulation and celiac branch of the abdominal vagus nerve neuromodulation on colonic motility in anesthetized pigs.

BACKGROUND: Knowledge on optimal electrical stimulation (ES) modalities and region-specific functional effects of colonic neuromodulation is lacking. We aimed to map the regional colonic motility in response to ES of (a) the colonic tissue and (b) celiac branch of the abdominal vagus nerve (CBVN) in an anesthetized porcine model. METHODS: In male Yucatan pigs, direct ES (10 Hz, 2 ms, 15 mA) of proximal (pC), transverse (tC), or distal (dC) colon was done using planar flexible multi-electrode array panels and CBVN ES (2 Hz, 0.3-4 ms, 5 mA) using pulse train (PT), continuous (10 min), or square-wave (SW) modalities, with or without afferent nerve block (200 Hz, 0.1 ms, 2 mA). The regional luminal manometric changes were quantified as area under the curve of contractions (AUC) and luminal pressure maps generated. Contractions frequency power spectral analysis was performed. Contraction propagation was assessed using video animation of motility changes. KEY RESULTS: Direct colon ES caused visible local circular (pC, tC) or longitudinal (dC) muscle contractions and increased luminal pressure AUC in pC, tC, and dC (143.0 ± 40.7%, 135.8 ± 59.7%, and 142.0 ± 62%, respectively). The colon displayed prominent phasic pressure frequencies ranging from 1 to 12 cpm. Direct pC and tC ES increased the dominant contraction frequency band (1-6 cpm) power locally. Pulse train CBVN ES (2 Hz, 4 ms, 5 mA) triggered pancolonic contractions, reduced by concurrent afferent block. Colon contractions propagated both orally and aborally in short distances. CONCLUSION AND INFERENCES: In anesthetized pigs, the dominant contraction frequency band is 1-6 cpm. Direct colonic ES causes primarily local contractions. The CBVN ES-induced pancolonic contractions involve central neural network.

Angular color shift of micro-LED displays.

Sidewall emission of a micro-scale light emitting diode (micro-LED) improves the light extraction efficiency, but it causes mismatched angular distributions between AlGaInP-based red micro-LED and InGaN-based blue/green counterparts due to material difference. As a result, color shift of RGB micro-LED displays may become visually noticeable. To address this issue, we first analyze the angular distributions of RGB micro-LEDs and obtain good agreement between simulation and experiment. Next, we propose a device structure with top black matrix and taper angle in micro-LEDs, which greatly suppresses the color shift while keeping a reasonably high light extraction efficiency.

Elevation of serum oxidative stress in patients with retina vein occlusions.

PURPOSE: Retina vein occlusion (RVO) is a visual-threatening retinal disease that causes irreversible impaired quality of life. The contribution of oxidative stress behind clinical course of RVO was rarely investigated. The study aimed to measure the serum oxidative biomarker in patients with RVO to investigate further physical response. METHODS: We measured the serum levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8OHdG), Sirutin 1 (SIRT1), peroxisome proliferator- activated receptor gamma (PPAR-r), Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α), orkhead box protein O1 (FOXO1), orkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3), catalase, (SOD) and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) among 19 patients with cataract as control group and 36 patients with RVO, respectively. RESULTS: The mean MDA, 8OHdG and hydrogen peroxide in the serum were significantly higher in patients with RVO compared with the results in control group subjects. Whereas SIRT1, PPAR-r, PGC-1, FOXO1, FOXO3, catalase and SOD levels in serum were significantly decreased in patients with RVO compared with control group. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that the serum level of MDA, 8OHdG and hydrogen peroxide is increased in patients with RVO. Among these, the elevation of MDA, 8OHdG and hydrogen peroxide suggests the increasing of serum oxidative stress in RVO patients. All enzymes related reactive oxygen species scavenge were decreased. Thus, focal RVO may increase systemic oxidative stress within serum.