Polarization-based ghost reduction for light field display with diffractive waveguide
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Journal Volume
13821
Start Page
1382118
ISBN
[9781510695535]
Date Issued
2026-03-05
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Hua, Hong
Argaman, Naamah
Nikolov, Daniel K.
Abstract
Most near-eye augmented reality (AR) displays with a single fixed focal plane struggle to provide accurate depth cues, causing vergence-accommodation conflict and visual discomfort to viewers. Light field display offers a promising solution for reconstructing virtual scenes with full-parallax information and matching focus cues. However, due to non-sequential ray propagation in the diffractive waveguide, ghost artifact arises as the structure of light field is disrupted by the replicated light rays. This disruptive phenomenon compromises depth fidelity and overall image quality and remains as a significant challenge for near-eye light field AR displays. Since light rays emanated from the same virtual object point across different subviews encode the spatial and angular information of the scene and converge at the focal plane of the eye corresponding to the depth of the virtual object, maintaining the correct spatial sequence of subviews is crucial for accurate rendering of virtual image at that depth. In this paper, we propose a polarization-based approach to mitigate the ghost artifact. By differentiating polarization states of adjacent subviews in the light field and incorporating polarizers, repetitive out-coupling of light rays is effectively suppressed. The results show a significant reduction of ghost artifact in the perceived image while preserving the structure of light field and image quality. Our study provides insight into preservation of the structure of light field and offers an effective solution to improve the viewers' visual experience, contributing to the development of more comfortable, perceptually accurate near-eye AR displays.
Event(s)
7th Optical Architectures for Displays and Sensing in Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality, AR, VR, MR
Subjects
augmented reality
diffractive waveguide
ghost artifact
Light field display
Publisher
SPIE
Type
conference paper