Diffractive optical elements for large-field image display

A system, comprising:

• a DOE generation system including controlling circuitry configured to generate a diffractive optical element (DOE) based on a first image, the DOE including a plurality of DOE segments, each of the plurality of DOE segments corresponding with a respective portion of the first image;
• an illumination system configured to generate a beam of electromagnetic radiation;
• and
• an imaging system configured to produce a second image upon illumination with the beam of electromagnetic radiation by illuminating each of the plurality of DOE segments with the beam of electromagnetic radiation, each of the plurality of DOE segments being disposed upon a respective diffraction grating to produce a respective monolithic diffractive stack for that DOE segment, the plurality of DOE segments forming the DOE and producing upon illumination a second image, a difference between the first image and the second image being less than a specified threshold.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium, the computer program product including code that, when executed by processing circuitry of a computing device, causes the processing circuitry to perform a method, the method comprising:

• receiving intensity data representing an image;
• performing an image decomposition operation to produce a plurality of sub-images of the image, each of the plurality of sub-images representing a portion of the image;
• for each of the plurality of sub-images of the image, performing an inverse imaging operation on that sub-image to produce a wavefront modulating element (WME) segment of a plurality of WME segments, each of the plurality of WME segments corresponding to a respective sub-image of the plurality of sub-images;
• and
• arranging the plurality of WME segments based on the image decomposition operation to form a WME such that each of the plurality of WME segments is disposed upon a respective diffraction grating to produce a respective monolithic diffractive stack for that WME segment.