{"id":476742,"date":"2021-04-30T16:16:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T20:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=476742"},"modified":"2022-11-29T17:04:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T22:04:27","slug":"a-new-way-to-make-ar-vr-glasses-476742","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/a-new-way-to-make-ar-vr-glasses-476742\/","title":{"rendered":"A new way to make AR\/VR glasses look more like regular glasses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A metaform is a new optical component that Rochester researchers say can combine with freeform optics to create the next generation of AR\/VR glasses, headsets and eyewear. (University of Rochester illustration \/ Michael Osadciw)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Rochester researchers combine freeform optics and a metasurface to avoid \u2018bug eyes\u2019 in AR\/VR glasses<\/h2>\n

\u201cImage\u201d is everything in the $20 billion market for AR\/VR glasses. Consumers are looking for glasses that are compact and easy to wear, delivering high-quality imagery with socially acceptable optics that don\u2019t look like \u201cbug eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

University of Rochester<\/a> researchers at the Institute of Optics<\/a> have come up with a novel technology to deliver those attributes with maximum effect. In a paper in Science Advances<\/em>,<\/a> they describe imprinting freeform optics with a nanophotonic optical element called \u201ca metasurface.\u201d<\/p>\n

The metasurface is a veritable forest of tiny, silver, nanoscale structures on a thin metallic film that conforms, in this advance, to the freeform shape of the optics\u2014realizing a new optical component the researchers call a metaform.<\/p>\n

The metaform is able to defy the conventional laws of reflection, gathering the visible light rays entering an AR\/VR eyepiece from all directions, and redirecting them directly into the human eye.<\/p>\n

Nick Vamivakas<\/a>, a professor of quantum optics and quantum physics, likened the nanoscale structures to small-scale radio antennas. \u201cWhen we actuate the device and illuminate it with the right wavelength, all of these antennas start oscillating, radiating a new light that delivers the image we want downstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMetasurfaces are also called \u2018flat optics\u2019 so writing metasurfaces on freeform optics is creating an entirely new type of optical component,\u201d says Jannick Rolland<\/a>, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering and director of the Center for Freeform Optics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adds Rolland, \u201cThis kind of optical component can be applied to any mirrors or lenses, so we are already finding applications in other types of components\u201d such as sensors and mobile cameras.<\/p>\n