Waveguide hologram illuminators
AssigneeUniversity of Alabama in Huntsville
InventorsH. John Caulfield, Qiang Huang, Andrei Putilin, Valentin Morozov, Joseph Shamir
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Abstract
A waveguide hologram illumination system is based on thin substrate waveguides bearing a hologram on the surface through which light is diffracted out. A light source is optically coupled to the waveguide such that light emitted from the source is caused to propagate along the waveguide, being diffracted out at intersections with the surface of the waveguide on which the hologram is formed. The selective emission through the hologram can be advantageously used to illuminate display holograms or spatial light modulators. Provisions are made for rendering the amount of light emitted through the hologram uniform along the length of the hologram.
Claims9
A holographic waveguide illumination system, comprising:
- a thin substrate waveguide having a first surface through which is diffracted,
- a hologram formed on at least a portion of said first surface, and
- a white, incoherent light source optically and physically coupled to said thin substrate waveguide such that when white, incoherent light is emitted from said white, incoherent light source at least a portion enters said waveguide and is diffracted out of the waveguide through said hologram.
A method for selectively illuminating an object, comprising, emitting white, incoherent light from a light source optically connected to a thin substrate waveguide, said waveguide comprising a first surface through which light is diffracted, and a hologram formed on at a least a portion of said first surface causing at least a portion of said emitted light to enter said waveguide and diffract out of the waveguide through said hologram to thereby illuminate said object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.