Controllable waveguide for near-eye display applications

A waveguide of a near-eye display for conveying virtual images to a viewer's eye within an eyebox through the waveguide comprising:

• a plate-shaped body having a front surface for facing an ambient environment, a back surface for facing an eyebox, and a length for propagating a limited range of angularly related beams by successive reflections from the front and back surfaces,
• an input aperture of the plate-shaped body having a plurality of controllable components for collectively receiving angularly related beams over multiple wavelengths that define a pupil of a virtual image generator and for individually injecting subsets of the angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths into the plate-shaped body within the limited range of angles,
• together, the controllable components of the input aperture providing for injecting two or more different subsets of angularly related beams spanning a range of angles that is greater than the limited range of angles that can be propagated along the plate-shaped body,
• an output aperture of the plate-shaped body having a plurality of controllable components for individually receiving the subsets of angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths and for collectively ejecting the subsets of angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths from the waveguide,
• each of the controllable components of the input and output apertures comprising a transformable diffractive optic that is transformable between a first state that is substantially transparent to the subsets of angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths and a second state that diffracts one or more of the subsets of angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths, and
• a controller that synchronizes transformations of the controllable components of the input and output apertures for sequentially injecting and ejecting the subsets of angularly related beams over the multiple wavelengths within an integration interval of the viewer's eye for collectively re-forming the pupil of the virtual image generator within the eyebox.

A method of relaying an exit pupil of an image generator through a waveguide to an eyebox for presenting a virtual image to a viewer comprising steps of:

• generating angularly related beams over a range of angles that form an exit pupil of an image generator,
• locating an input aperture of a waveguide proximate to the exit pupil of the image generator for receiving the angularly related beams,
• transforming controllable components of the input aperture between a first state that is substantially transparent to the angularly related beams and a second state that diffracts the angularly related beams for individually injecting subsets of the angularly related beams into the a waveguide for propagation along the waveguide within a limited range of angles,
• together, the controllable components of the input aperture providing for injecting two or more different subsets of angularly related beams spanning a range of angles that is greater than the limited range of angles that can be propagated along the plate-shaped body,
• locating an output aperture of the waveguide proximate to an eyebox, and
• transforming controllable components of the output aperture between the first state that is substantially transparent to the angularly related beams and the second state that diffracts the angularly related beams for individually ejecting the subsets of the angularly related beams from the waveguide into the eyebox over a range of angles that re-form the exit pupil of the image generator within the eyebox.