Liquid crystal device for electrically tunable vision correction

A head mounted display (HMD) system, comprising:

• a sensor configured to detect information indicating a gaze direction of an eye of a user of the HMD system,
• a processor configured to determine the gaze direction based on the information detected by the sensor,
• a liquid crystal (LC) device including:
• a first electrode structure disposed on a first substrate with an elliptical shape, the first electrode structure being transparent and including parallel first segments connected by second segments, the first segments being longer than the second segments,
• a plurality of first control electrodes that are electrically coupled with the first electrode structure, the plurality of first control electrodes being configured to form LC lenses with different center positions to adjust an optical power of the HMD system, each of the LC lenses with the different center positions being formed when electrical signals are applied to a subset of the plurality of first control electrodes that is associated with the respective LC lens,
• a second electrode structure disposed on a second substrate that is parallel to the first substrate, and
• at least one second control electrode that is electrically coupled with the second electrode structure, and
• a controller configured to determine a subset of first control electrodes in the plurality of first control electrodes based on the gaze direction.

A method of tuning a display system, comprising:

• determining, based on vision correction information of a user of the display system, an optical power of a liquid crystal (LC) lens to be formed in an LC device for vision correction, the LC device including a first electrode structure and a plurality of first control electrodes that are electrically coupled with the first electrode structure, wherein the first electrode structure is disposed on a first substrate with an elliptical shape, is transparent, and includes parallel first segments connected by second segments, and the first segments are longer than the second segments;
• determining a gaze direction of an eye of the user of the display system;
• determining a position of the LC lens in the LC device based on the gaze direction;
• determining (i) a subset of first control electrodes in the plurality of first control electrodes to which first voltage signals are applied and (ii) the first voltage signals to be applied to the subset of first control electrodes based on the position and the optical power of the LC lens;
• and
• applying the determined first voltage signals to the determined subset of first control electrodes to form the LC lens at the determined position corresponding to the gaze direction for the vision correction.