Large-field-of-view large-size 3D holographic displays using wave-front shaping of multiple light scattering fields (HoloWS)

Holographic display is considered the holy-grail of three-dimensional (3D) auto-stereo displays because it generates arbitrary wavefronts providing imagery with all the 3D visual cues.

However, the information content of a hologram with a large optical extent (the product of area and field-of-view) is much greater than the display capabilities of current spatial light modulators (SLMs) due to these SLM’s low space bandwidth product (a small diffraction angle range and limited pixel number) limiting the viewing angle and size of a displayed 3D holographic image.

Therefore, the SLM’s low display capabilities hinder the realization of dynamic 3D displays of holograms with a large optical extent.

Here, the HoloWS project will develop a novel holographic display method based on wave-front shaping of multiple light scattering fields to augment both limited viewing angle and image size at the same time, without the aforementioned drawbacks.

Using a volumetric light scattering field, generated by highly disordered turbid media mediums, in conjunction with actively controlled wavefront shaping, the HoloWS project will display dynamic holograms with significantly increased viewing angle and image size at the same time.

As a result, the viewing angle and the image size are enhanced compared with the case of using the SLM only to solve the inherent trade-off between the display size and visual angle.