Facebook Patent | Pancake Lens Assembly And Optical System Thereof

Patent: Pancake Lens Assembly And Optical System Thereof

Publication Number: 20200348528

Publication Date: 20201105

Applicants: Facebook

Abstract

An optical lens assembly and a head-mounted display (HMD) is provided. The optical lens assembly includes a first optical element including a partial reflector and a quarter-wave plate, a second optical element including a reflective polarizer, and a varifocal lens disposed inside a cavity formed by the first optical element and the second optical element. The varifocal lens is a liquid crystal (LC) lens stack including a plurality of LC lenses. An LC lens of the plurality of the LC lenses has a plurality of optical states including an additive state that adds optical power to the varifocal lens and a subtractive state that removes optical power from the varifocal lens. The plurality of optical states provides a range of adjustment of optical power for the optical lens assembly.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application is a continuation application of US patent application No. U.S. Ser. No. 16/403,140, entitled “PANCAKE LENS ASSEMBLY AND OPTICAL SYSTEM THEREOF”, filed on May 3, 2019.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Head-Mounted Display (HMD) has been widely used in, e.g., video playback, gaming, and sports. One major application of HMD is to realize at least one of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or mixed reality (MR). An HMD is highly desired to be compact and light weight, and have high resolution, large field of view (FOV), and small form factors. An HMD generally has a display element configured to generate image light that passes through a lens system to reach a user’s eyes. The lens system includes multiple optical elements, such as lenses, waveplates, reflectors, etc., for focusing the image light to the user’s eyes. To achieve a compact size and light weight but maintain good optical characteristics, an HMD often uses a pancake lens in the lens system.

[0003] Further, current VR/AR/MR HMDs are often having the so-called vergence-accommodation conflict, where a stereoscopic image pair drives the vergence state of a user’s human visual system to arbitrary distances, but the accommodation or focusing state of the user’s eyes is optically driven towards a fixed distance. The vergence-accommodation conflict causes eye strain or headaches during prolonged VR/AR/MR sessions, significantly degrading the visual experience of the users. The disclosed pancake lens assembly and optical system thereof are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

[0004] One aspect of the present disclosure provides an optical lens assembly. The optical lens assembly includes a first optical element including a partial reflector and a quarter-wave plate, a second optical element including a reflective polarizer, and a varifocal lens disposed inside a cavity formed by the first optical element and the second optical element. The varifocal lens is a liquid crystal (LC) lens stack including a plurality of LC lenses. An LC lens of the plurality of the LC lenses has a plurality of optical states including an additive state that adds optical power to the varifocal lens and a subtractive state that removes optical power from the varifocal lens. The plurality of optical states provides a range of adjustment of optical power for the optical lens assembly.

[0005] Another aspect of the present disclosure provides a head-mounted display (HMD). The HMD includes an optical lens assembly that receives an image light from an electronic display and directs the image light to an eye-box. The optical lens assembly includes a first optical element including a partial reflector and a quarter-wave plate, a second optical element including a reflective polarizer, and a varifocal lens disposed inside a cavity formed by the first optical element and the second optical element. The varifocal lens is a liquid crystal (LC) lens stack including a plurality of LC lenses. An LC lens of the plurality of the LC lenses has a plurality of optical states including an additive state that adds optical power to the varifocal lens and a subtractive state that removes optical power from the varifocal lens. The plurality of optical states provides a range of adjustment of optical power for the optical lens assembly.

[0006] Other aspects of the present disclosure can be understood by those skilled in the art in light of the description, the claims, and the drawings of the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] The following drawings are provided for illustrative purposes according to various disclosed embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.

[0008] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of a pancake lens assembly according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0009] FIG. 2 illustrate a schematic diagram of a segmented phase profile (SPP) liquid crystal (LC) lens according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0010] FIG. 3A illustrates a phase profile of an LC lens that does not include any phase resets;

[0011] FIG. 3B illustrates a phase profile of an SPP LC lens according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0012] FIG. 4A illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0013] FIG. 4B illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens having floating electrodes according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0014] FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0015] FIG. 6A illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack without Fresnel resets offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 6B illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack having Fresnel resets offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0017] FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic diagram of a light propagation in a pancake lens assembly according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0018] FIG. 8 illustrates a schematic diagram of a pancake lens assembly according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0019] FIGS. 9A-9B illustrate schematic diagrams of pancake lens assemblies according to embodiments of the disclosure;

[0020] FIG. 10 illustrates a schematic diagram of a Pancharatnam Berry Phase (PBP) LC lens stack according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0021] FIG. 11 illustrates a schematic diagram of a PBP LC lens according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0022] FIG. 12A illustrates LC orientations in the PBP LC lens in FIG. 11;

[0023] FIG. 12B illustrates a section of LC orientations taken along y-axis in the PBP LC lens in FIG. 11;

[0024] FIG. 13 illustrates a schematic diagram of a pancake lens assembly according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0025] FIG. 14 illustrates a schematic diagram of a light propagation in a pancake lens assembly according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0026] FIGS. 15A-15B illustrate schematic diagrams of pancake lens assemblies according to embodiments of the disclosure;

[0027] FIGS. 16A-16B illustrate schematic diagrams of pancake lens assemblies according to embodiments of the disclosure;

[0028] FIGS. 17A-17B illustrate schematic diagrams of pancake lens assemblies according to embodiments of the disclosure;

[0029] FIG. 18 illustrates a block diagram of a system environment according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0030] FIG. 19A illustrates a schematic diagram of a head mounted display (HMD) shown in FIG. 18;* and*

[0031] FIG. 19B illustrates a schematic diagram of a front rigid body of the HMD shown in FIG. 18A.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] Hereinafter, embodiments consistent with the disclosure will be described with reference to drawings, which are merely examples for illustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. In the drawings, the shape and size may be exaggerated, distorted, or simplified for clarity. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts, and a detailed description thereof may be omitted.

[0033] Further, in the present disclosure, the disclosed embodiments and the features of the disclosed embodiments may be combined under conditions without conflicts. The described embodiments are some but not all of the embodiments of the present disclosure. Based on the disclosed embodiments, persons of ordinary skill in the art may derive other embodiments consistent with the present disclosure, all of which are within the scope of the present disclosure.

[0034] The present disclosure provides a pancake lens assembly, which is capable of folding the optical path and solving vergence-accommodation conflict in head-mounted displays (HMDs). The pancake lens assembly may include a first optical element including a partial reflector and a quarter-wave plate and a second optical element including a reflective polarizer. The first optical element and the second optical element may form a cavity. The pancake lens assembly may further include a varifocal lens having an adjustable optical power. In some embodiments, the varifocal lens may be disposed inside the cavity. In some embodiments, the varifocal lens may be disposed outside the cavity. The varifocal lens may enable the pancake lens assembly to be a variable pancake lens assembly.

[0035] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of a pancake lens assembly 100 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The pancake lens assembly 100 may be used in an optical system to fold the optical path from a light source to a detector. For example, the pancake lens assembly 100 may be used in a head-mounted display (HMD), to fold the optical path, thereby reducing the back focal distance in the HMD. As shown in FIG. 1, the pancake lens assembly 100 may focus light 190 from an electronic display 110 to an eye-box located at an exit pupil 170. Hereinafter, the light 190 emitted by the electronic display 110 for forming images is also referred to as “image light.” The exit pupil 170 may be at a location where an eye 180 is positioned in an eye-box region when a user wears the HMD.

[0036] The pancake lens assembly 100 may include a first optical element 120, a varifocal lens 130, a second optical element 140. The first optical element 120 and the second optical element 140 may form a cavity, and the varifocal lens 130 may be disposed inside or outside the cavity. For illustrative purposes, FIG. 1 shows the varifocal lens 130 may be disposed inside the cavity formed by the first optical element 120 and the second optical element 140. In some embodiments, the first optical element 120, the varifocal lens 130 and the second optical element 140 may be coupled together by an adhesive. The first optical element 120 and/or the second optical element 140 may include one or more optical lenses. In some embodiments, the first optical element 120 may include a first surface 120-1 configured to receive the image light from the electronic display 110 and an opposing second surface 120-2 configured to output altered image light. The first optical element 120 may further include a mirrored surface 122 and a waveplate surface 124, which are separate layers or coatings bonded to or formed on the first optical element 120. In some embodiments, the waveplate surface 124 may be bonded to or formed on the second surface 120-2 of the first optical element 120, and the mirrored surface 122 may be bonded to or formed on the first surface 120-1 of the first optical element 120.

[0037] The mirrored surface 122 may include a partial reflector that is partially reflective to reflect a portion of the received light. In some embodiments, the mirrored surface 122 may be configured to transmit about 50% of incident light and reflect about 50% of the incident light. Such a mirrored surface is often referred to as a 50/50 mirror. In some embodiments, the waveplate surface 124 may include a quarter-wave plate (QWP) that alters the polarization of received light. A quarter-wave plate includes a polarization axis, and the polarization axis of the QWP may be oriented relative to incident linearly polarized light to convert the linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light or vice versa for a visible spectrum and/or infrared spectrum. In some embodiments, for an achromatic design, the quarter-wave plate may include a multilayer birefringent material (e.g., polymer or liquid crystals) to produce quarter wave birefringence across a wide spectral range. In some embodiments, for a simple monochrome design, an angle between the polarization axis (i.e., fast axis) of the quarter-wave plate and incident linearly polarized light may be approximately 45 degrees.

[0038] The second optical element 140 may have a first surface 140-1 facing the varifocal lens 130 and an opposing second surface 140-2. The second optical element 140 may include a reflective polarizer surface 142, which is a separate layer or coating bonded to or formed on the second optical element 140. In some embodiments, the reflective polarizer surface 142 may be bonded to or formed on the first surface 140-1 of the second optical element 140. The reflective polarizer surface 142 may include a partially reflective mirror configured to reflect a received light of a first linear polarization and transmit a received light of a second linear polarization. For example, the reflective polarizer surface 142 may reflect light polarized in a blocking direction (e.g., x-axis direction), and transmit light polarized in an orthogonal direction (e.g., y-axis direction). In the disclosed embodiments, the blocking direction is referred to as a direction of a blocking axis or a blocking axis direction of the reflective polarizer surface 142, and the perpendicular direction is referred to as a direction of a transmission axis or a transmission axis direction of the reflective polarizer surface 142.

[0039] The varifocal lens 130 may have a variable focal length, for example, an adjustable optical power. The varifocal lens 130 may include any suitable lenses, such as a glass lens, a polymer lens, a liquid lens, a liquid crystal (LC) lens, or some combination thereof. The varifocal lens 130 may adjust an orientation of light emitted from the electronic display 110, such that the light emitted from the electronic display 110 appears at particular focal distances/image planes from the user. In some embodiments, the varifocal lens 130 may include an LC lens 130, which is capable of adjusting the optical power sufficiently fast to keep pace with eye accommodation (e.g., accommodation occurs in around 300 ms), such that the vergence-accommodation conflict in the HMD can be resolved.

[0040] The pancake lens assembly 100 shown in FIG. 1 is merely for illustrative purposes. In some embodiments, one or more of the first surface 120-1 and the second surface 120-2 of the first optical element 120 and the first surface 140-1 and the second surface 140-2 of the second optical element 140 may be curved surface(s). In some embodiments, the pancake lens assembly 100 consistent with the disclosure can have one optical element or more than two optical elements. In some embodiments, the pancake lens assembly 100 may further include other optical elements arranged between the electronic display 110 and the eye 180, such as a linear polarizer, a quarter-wave plate, which is not limited by the present disclosure.

[0041] In some embodiments, the LC lens 130 may have a Fresnel structure, i.e., a Fresnel LC lens. The Fresnel LC lens may include any appropriate type of Fresnel structure, such as a Fresnel zone plate lens including areas that have a phase difference of a half-wave to adjacent areas, a diffractive Fresnel lens having a segmented parabolic phase profile where the segments are small and can result in significant diffraction, or a refractive Fresnel lens having a segmented parabolic profile where the segments are large enough so that diffraction effects are minimized. Other structures may also be used. In some embodiments, the varifocal lens 130 may include a refractive Fresnel LC lens having a segmented parabolic profile, where the segments are large enough such that the diffraction angle is smaller than the angular resolution of human eyes, i.e., diffraction effects are not observable by human eyes. Such a refractive Fresnel LC lens is referred to as a segmented phase profile (SPP) LC lens.

[0042] FIG. 2 illustrate a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens 200 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in FIG. 2, the Fresnel structure of the SPP LC lens 200 is represented by a plurality of concentric ring-shaped zones 202 of increasing radii, which are referred as Fresnel segments or Fresnel resets. For a positive thin lens, optical path difference (“OPD”) is approximated with Maclaurin series to a parabolic profile as shown in Equation (1)

OPD ( r ) = - r 2 2 f , ( 1 ) ##EQU00001##

where r is the lens radius (i.e., half of the lens aperture) and f is the focal length. The OPD of an LC lens is proportional to the cell thickness d and the birefringence 4n of the LC material as shown in Equation (2)

OPD=d*.DELTA.n, (2)

The response time .tau. of an Electrically Controlled Birefringence (ECB) LC cell, which is the time the material requires to recover to its original state, is quadratically dependent on cell thickness d (.tau..varies.d.sup.2) as shown in Equation (3)

.tau. = .gamma. .times. d 2 K 11 .times. .pi. 2 , ( 3 ) ##EQU00002##

where .gamma. and K.sub.11 are the rotational viscosity and the splay elastic constant of the LC material, respectively. Equations (1)-(3) show there is a tradeoff between the aperture size and response time, and thus designing an LC lens with large aperture and reasonable response time is an uphill task. In the disclosed embodiments, though introducing phase resets in the parabolic phase profile, e.g., using a SPP LC lens, a large aperture size of the LC lens may be allowed without compromising the response time.

[0043] FIG. 3A illustrates a desired phase profile for .+-.0.375 Diopter (D) LC lens that does not include any phase resets, where the OPD equals to 35.lamda.. The aperture of the LC lens is 20 mm, and the thickness of the LC cell is about 70 .mu.m for LC materials with a birefringence .DELTA.n of 0.27. To decrease the effective thickness of the LC cell, resets or segments may be introduced into the lens phase profile. FIG. 3B illustrates 2D phase map of the SPP LC lens 200 that includes 5 resets, where the thickness of the LC cell would be reduced up to 5 times and, accordingly, the response time would be improved by a factor of 25. That is, through introducing the segments in the lens phase profile, the optical power of the SPP LC lens 200 may be adjusted sufficiently fast to keep pace with eye accommodation (e.g., accommodation occurs in around 300 ms), such that the vergence-accommodation conflict would be resolved.

[0044] The number of the resets may be determined based on specific configurations of the Fresnel structure and the SPP LC lens 200 requirements, such as the desired optical power, lens aperture, switching time, image quality of the LC lens. A large number of phase steps within one wavelength of OPD (i.e., per wavelength) may be desired for accurate representation of phase profile. Meanwhile, to configure the SPP LC lens with negligible diffraction angle for near eye applications, the minimum width of the Fresnel segments (i.e., the minimum Fresnel segment width) of the SPP LC lens 200 is desired to be larger than about 1 mm for green light having a wavelength of 543.5 nm.

[0045] FIG. 4A illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens 400 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The SPP LC lens 400 may be the SPP LC lens 200 in FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 4A, the SPP LC lens 400 may include a plurality of first electrodes 412, one or more second electrode 410, a liquid crystal (LC) layer 414, and substrates 416. The substrates 416 may be substantially transparent in the visible band (.about.380 nm to 750 nm). In certain embodiments, the substrates 416 may also be transparent in some or all of the infrared (IR) band (.about.750 nm to 1 mm). The substrate layers may be composed of, e.g., SiO.sub.2, plastic, sapphire, etc. The first electrodes 412 and second electrodes 410 may be transparent electrodes (e.g., indium tin oxide electrodes) disposed on the substrates 416 to generate electric fields, which reorients the LC molecules in the LC layer 414 to form a lens having a desired phase profile.

[0046] In some embodiments, the first electrodes 412 may include discrete ring-shaped electrodes corresponding to the Fresnel structures in the SPP LC lens 400, and the ring-shaped electrodes may be concentric with identical area. With this electrode geometry, when the phase difference between adjacent first electrodes 412 is the same, a parabolic phase profile may be obtained. If the phase is proportional to the applied voltage, a linear change in the voltage across the first electrodes 412 (same difference in voltage between any two first electrodes 412) may yield a desired parabolic phase profile.

[0047] In some embodiments, the gaps between the first electrodes 412 can cause scattering and thus image degradation. To address that image degradation, a plurality of floating electrodes may be introduced. FIG. 4B illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens 450 having floating electrodes according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in FIG. 4B, a plurality of floating electrodes 418 may be disposed on the substrate 416 having the first electrodes 412. The floating electrodes 418 may include discrete and concentric ring electrodes which are not driven by ohmic connection but are capacitively coupled to the first electrodes 412. The floating electrodes 418 may be configured to cover half of the area of each of neighboring first electrodes 412. An insulating layer 420 may be disposed between the floating electrodes 418 and the first electrodes 412 to achieve the electrical insulation.

[0048] To further improve the response time of the SPP LC lens, in some embodiments, multiple SPP LC lens (e.g., multiple lens layers) may be optically coupled to form a stack of SPP LC lens, i.e., an SPP LC lens stack, such that given a same tunable optical power range, the thickness of each SPP LC lens may be reduced and, accordingly, the response of each SPP LC lens may be reduced. FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack 500 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. For illustrative purposes, FIG. 5 shows a pair of SPP LC lenses may be optically coupled to form the SPP LC lens stack 500. Provided that each SPP LC lens has 5 resets in the phase profile, considering the effect of the pair of lenses and the Fresnel resets, the thickness of the LC cell may be reduced up to 10 times (5 resets.times.2) and, accordingly, the response speed may be improved by a factor of 100. Moreover, the two SPP LC lenses may have opposite alignment directions (e.g., rubbing directions) on the corresponding LC surfaces of the two SPP LC lens, so as to improve the viewing angle. That is, for viewing angle improvement, two of SPP LC lenses with the same configuration but opposite rubbing directions may be optically coupled.

[0049] In addition, the polarization insensitivity is also very important for HMDs for AR applications. Most LC materials are birefringent and, thus, are polarization sensitive. When the light propagating in a direction parallel to the LC director is incident onto the LC cell, the light will experience ordinary refractive index no of the LC material for any polarization states. However, when the light propagating in a direction perpendicular to the LC director is incident onto the LC cell, the light will experience refractive index between the ordinary refractive index no and extraordinary refractive index n.sub.e of the LC material, depending on the polarization state of light.

[0050] Cholesteric LC materials can be made polarization insensitive as discussed by Clarke et al. in Electro-active lens U.S. Pat. No. 7,728,949B2. In this case the pitch of cholesteric LCs can be made in the range of the wavelength of incident light and, therefore, when no voltage is applied to the LC cell,* the light will experience an average refractive index*

( n o + n e 2 ) ##EQU00003##

for any polarization states of light. For nematic LCs, the SPP LC lenses may be configured to be polarization insensitive by optically coupling cells of orthogonal polarization, in which each cell may focus one polarization state of light, for example, one cell focuses s polarization and the other focuses p polarization.

[0051] FIG. 6A illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack 600 without Fresnel resets offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in FIG. 6A, the SPP LC lens stack 600 may include a plurality of SPP LC lenses or SPP LC lens layers 610 stacked in a z-direction. Each SPP LC lens 610 may have a Fresnel structure including a plurality of concentric ring-shaped zones of increasing radii. Each SPP LC lens 610 may have a same configuration of the concentric ring-shaped zones or Fresnel resets, for example, the radius of the corresponding ring-shaped zones in the SPP LC lenses 610 may be the same. For illustrative purposes, FIG. 6A shows the SPP LC lens stack 600 may include eight SPP LC lenses 610, and each SPP LC lens 610 may include three concentric ring-shaped zones of increasing radii: a first zone 610-1, a second zone 610-2 and a third zone 610-3. The first zones 610-1 of the eight SPP LC lenses 610 may have the same radius, the second zones 610-2 of the eight SPP LC lenses 610 may have the same radius, and the third zones 610-3 of the eight SPP LC lenses 610 may have the same radius.

[0052] A problem of such an SPP LC lens stack 600 is that chief rays (ray from an off-axis point in an object passing through the center of an aperture stop) from different off-axis points in the object may experience different phase after transmitted through the SPP LC lens stack 600 due to the unmatched Fresnel resets. For example, shown in FIG. 6A, a chief ray 601 may propagate through eight second zones 610-2, a chief ray 603 may propagate through seven second zones 610-2 and one first zone 610-1, a chief ray 605 may propagate through six second zones 610-2 and two first zone 610-1, and so on, a chief ray 613 may propagate through eight first zones 610-1. That is, chief rays 601, 603, 605, 607, 609, 611 and 613 each may experience a different phase after transmitted through the SPP LC lens stack 600 due to the unmatched Fresnel resets. As a result, when cutting up the pupil with unmatched Fresnel resets, each slide may have a different phase.

[0053] In view of this, in the disclosed embodiments, the SPP LC lens stack may be configured to have Fresnel resets offset. FIG. 6B illustrates a schematic diagram of an SPP LC lens stack 650 having Fresnel resets offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure. For illustrative purposes, FIG. 6B shows the SPP LC lens stack 650 may include eight SPP LC lenses 660, and each SPP LC lens 660 may include three concentric ring-shaped zones or Fresnel resets of increasing radii: a first zone 660-1, a second zone 660-2 and a third zone 660-3. The Fresnel resets may be offset by following chief ray from nominal eye relief, such that the number of cuts may be reduced. For example, as shown in FIG. 6B, the first zones 660-1 of the eight SPP LC lenses 660 may be offset by following the chief ray 607 from nominal eye relief, the second zones 660-2 of the eight SPP LC lenses 660 may be offset by following the chief ray 601 from nominal eye relief. Thus, the chief rays 601, 603 and 605 may experience the same phase, and the chief rays 607, 609, 611 and 613 may experience the same phase. Thus, the number of cuts in the pupil may be reduced. For example, the pupil could still be cut up by 1 mm slices at edge of field.

[0054] FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic diagram of a light propagation 700 in a pancake lens assembly 100 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The varifocal lens 130 may be any one of the disclosed SPP LC lens or SPP LC lens stack. In FIG. 7, s denotes s-polarized light, p denotes p-polarized light, R denotes right-handed circularly polarized light, and L denotes left-handed circularly polarized light. In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, light 171 emitted from the electronic display 110 may be left-handed circularly polarized light (L) and transmitted to the mirrored surface 122. After the left-handed circularly polarized light (L) 171 reaches the mirrored surface 122, a first portion of the light 171 may be reflected by the mirrored surface 122, and a second portion of the light 171 may be transmitted by the mirrored surface 122, becoming left-handed circularly polarized light (L) 172 propagating towards the waveplate surface 124. The waveplate surface 124 may be a quarter-wave plate that converts the left-handed circularly polarized light (L) 172 to s-polarized light 173, which is incident onto the LC lens 130 then transmitted as s-polarized light 174.

[0055] The reflective polarizer surface 142 may reflect light that is polarized in a blocking direction (e.g., x-axis direction), and transmit light that is polarized in a perpendicular direction (e.g., y-axis direction). That is, the reflective polarizer surface 142 may transmit p-polarized light and reflect s-polarized light. Thus, the s-polarized light 174 traveling in the positive z-direction from the LC lens 130 may be reflected by the reflective polarizer surface 142 to be s-polarized light 175 traveling in the negative z-direction. The reflected s-polarized light 175 may be transmitted through the LC lens 130 for a second time to be s-polarized light 176, which is transmitted through the waveplate surface 124 for a second time and converted to left-handed circularly polarized light (L) 177 traveling in the negative z-direction. The left-handed circularly polarized light (L) 177 traveling in the negative z-direction may be reflect by the mirrored surface 122 to be right-handed circularly polarized light (R) 178, which is then transmitted through the waveplate surface 124 and converted to be p-polarized light 179. The p-polarized light 179 may be transmitted through the LC lens 130 for a third time to be p-polarized light 180, which is transmitted through the reflective polarizer surface 142 to be p-polarized light 181. The p-polarized light 181 may be transmitted through the second surface 140-2 of the second optical element to be incident into the user eye.

[0056] Through configuring the light from the electronic display 110 to be transmitted through the LC lens 130 three times by polarization controlling, the optical power added to the pancake lens assembly 100 by the LC lens 130 may be at least tripled. For example, provided that the first optical element 120, the second optical element 140 and the LC lens 130 have an optical power of D1, D2 and D3, respectively, the LC lens 130 may add an optical power of at least tripled D3 to the pancake lens assembly 100. That is, the total optical power of the pancake lens assembly 100 may be equal to at least (D1+D2+3*D3).

[0057] For illustrative purposes, FIG. 7 shows the light 171 emitted from the electronic display 110 is left-handed circularly polarized light (L). In some embodiments, light emitted from the electronic display 110 may be right-handed circularly polarized light (R). In some embodiments, light emitted from the electronic display 110 may be linearly polarized light, and a quarter-wave plate may be arranged between the electronic display 110 and the mirrored surface 122, or bonded to or formed on the mirrored surface 122 to convert the linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light. In some embodiments, light emitted from the electronic display 110 may be unpolarized light, and a linear polarizer and a quarter-wave plate may be arranged between the electronic display 110 and the mirrored surface 122, or bonded to or formed on the mirrored surface 122. The linear polarizer may convert the unpolarized light from the electronic display 110 to be linear polarized light, and the quarter-wave plate may be orientated relative to the linear polarizer to convert the linear polarized light received from the linear polarizer to circularly polarized light.

[0058] In some embodiments, the varifocal lens 130, e.g., an SPP LC lens 130, may be disposed outside the cavity formed by the first optical element and the second optical element. FIG. 8 illustrates a schematic diagram of a pancake lens assembly 800 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The similarities between FIG. 8 and FIG. 1 are not explained, while certain difference may be explained. As shown in FIG. 8, the SPP LC lens 130 may be disposed outside the cavity formed by the first optical element 120 and the second optical element 140. In some embodiments, the SPP LC lens 130 may be disposed between the first optical element 120 and the electronic display 110, i.e., disposed before the first optical element 120 in optical series.

[0059] Optical series refers to relative positioning of a plurality of optical elements, such that light, for each optical element of the plurality of optical elements, is transmitted by that optical element before being transmitted by another optical element of the plurality of optical elements. Moreover, ordering of the optical elements does not matter. For example, optical element A placed before optical element B, or optical element B placed before optical element A, are both in optical series. Similar to electric circuitry design, optical series represents optical elements with their optical properties compounded when placed in series.

[0060] The pancake lens assembly 800 may further include a quarter-wave plate 135 disposed between the SPP LC lens 130 and the first optical element 120, and configured to receive a linearly polarized light from the SPP LC lens 130. A polarization axis of the quarter-wave plate 135 may be orientated relative to the polarization direction of the linearly polarized light received from the SPP LC lens 130 to convert the linearly polarized light to a circularly polarized light to be incident onto the first optical element 120.

[0061] In some embodiments, when the light 190 emitted from the electronic display 110 is a circularly polarized light, a quarter-wave plate may be disposed between the SPP LC lens 130 and the electronic display 110 to convert the circularly polarized light to a linearly polarized light that is incident onto the SPP LC lens 130. In some embodiments, the SPP LC lens 130 (e.g., the alignment direction of the SPP LC lens 130) may be oriented relative to the polarization direction of the linearly polarized incident light to provide an adjustable optical power to the pancake lens assembly 800, thereby realizing a varifocal pancake lens assembly. In some embodiments, when the light 190 emitted from the electronic display 110 is a linearly polarized light, the SPP LC lens 130 (e.g., the alignment direction of the SPP LC lens 130) may be oriented relative to the polarization direction of the linearly polarized light to provide an adjustable optical power to the pancake lens assembly 800. In some embodiments, when the light 190 emitted from the electronic display 110 is a unpolarized light, a linear polarizer may be disposed between the SPP LC lens 130 and the electronic display 110 to convert the unpolarized light to a linearly polarized light.

[0062] For illustrative purposes, FIG. 8 shows the SPP LC lens 130 is disposed outside the cavity formed by the first optical element 120 and the second optical element 140, and disposed at a side of the cavity facing the electronic display 110. In another embodiment, the SPP LC lens 130 may be disposed at a side of the cavity far away from the electronic display 110. For example, the SPP LC lens 130 may be disposed between the second optical element 140 and the eye 180 to receive a linearly polarized light from the second optical element 140. That is, the SPP LC lens 130 may be disposed after the second optical element 140 in optical series. In some embodiments, the SPP LC lens 130 (e.g., the alignment direction of the SPP LC lens 130) may be oriented relative to the polarization direction of the linearly polarized light to provide an adjustable optical power to the pancake lens assembly 800.

……
……
……