Augmented-reality head-mounted displays (HMDs) have many wide-reaching applications in defense, medicine, gaming, etc. However, current commercial HMDs are bulky, heavy, and indiscreet. Moreover, current displays generate images without appropriate depth cues, which results in eyestrain and headaches that limit long-term use of these displays. In this talk, recent advances in the development of a novel integrated-photonics-based holographic display will be reviewed. The display consists of a single transparent chip that sits directly in front of the user’s eye and projects 3D holograms that only the user can see using amplitude- and phase-encoded liquid-crystal-based integrated optical phased arrays. It presents a highly discreet and fully holographic solution for the next generation of augmented-reality displays.

Milica Notaros is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Photonics and Electronics Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2017 and her M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the MIT Irwin Mark Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Presidential Fellowship, the 2016 IEEE Region 5 Student Paper Competition Award, and the 2021 MIT MARC Best Paper Award.