Diffraction of Phase Conjugate Material in a New HMD Architecture

Conventional head-mounted displays (HMDs) consisting of a pair of miniature projection lenses, beam splitters, and miniature displays mounted on the helmet, as well as phase conjugate material placed strategically in the environment have been redesigned to integrate the phase-conjugate material into a complete see-through embodiment. Some initial efforts of demonstrating the concept was followed by an investigation of the diffraction effects versus image degradation caused by integrating the phase-conjugate material internally in the HMD. The key contribution of this paper lies in the conception, and assessment of a novel see-through HMD. Finally, the diffraction efficiency of the phase-conjugate material is evaluated, and the overall performance of the optics is assessed in both object space for the optical designer and visual space for possible users for this technology. 1