Disclosure of Invention
The present invention provides a miniaturized short-distance optical system, wherein optical elements such as a reflective polarizer, a phase retarder, a partially transmissive partially reflective element, etc. are disposed between the front of a display screen and an optical module, and the optical paths with similar or identical lengths are achieved by phase retardation and multiple reflections of light, so as to shorten the distance between the display screen and the optical module, and finally, the miniaturized head-mounted display can be used.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a miniaturized short-distance optical system, wherein a single lens is disposed on any one side of any one of the reflective polarizer, the first phase retarder, the partially transmissive partially reflective element, the second phase retarder and the linearly polarizing plate, so as to achieve the purpose of miniaturization under the premise of adjusting the focal length.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a miniaturized short-distance optical system, which can be applied to a wide-angle lens or a wide-angle eyepiece of a head-mounted display, a game machine, etc. and can maximally shorten the thickness of the device by using only a single lens for focus adjustment, thereby achieving the advantages of short distance, large field of view, and good aberration correction.
To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a miniaturized short-distance optical system, comprising: a display screen for outputting images and emitting polarized or unpolarized light; a reflective polarizing element arranged corresponding to the display screen for partially transmitting and partially reflecting the light; a first phase retarder disposed corresponding to the reflective polarizer for receiving the light partially transmitted through the reflective polarizer and performing a first phase retardation; a partial transmission partial reflection element corresponding to the first phase retardation plate, so that the light beam after the first phase retardation partially penetrates the partial transmission partial reflection element, and partially reflects back to the first phase retardation plate for the second and third phase retardation; at least one optical element, which is arranged corresponding to the partial penetration partial reflection element, receives the light which penetrates the partial penetration partial reflection element and passes through the second and third phase delays, performs the fourth phase delay, and allows the light which passes through the fourth phase delay to pass through but the light which passes through the two phase delays cannot pass through; and a lens, which is arranged on any side of any one element of the reflective polarization element, the first phase retarder, the partial transmission partial reflection element and the optical element so as to adjust the focal length and guide the image into at least one human eye.
According to the embodiment of the present invention, the display screen and the lens and the human eye may further comprise one to more than one flat glass.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the optical element includes: a second phase delay plate, which is arranged corresponding to the partial transmission partial reflection element, receives the light which partially penetrates the partial transmission partial reflection element and passes through the second and third time phase delays, and carries out the fourth time phase delay; and a linear polarizer disposed corresponding to the second phase retarder, the linear polarizer being configured to let the light delayed by the second phase retarder not pass through, and let the light delayed by the fourth phase retarder pass through.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the optical element is a circularly polarizing plate.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the light reflected by the partially transmissive partially reflective element back to the first phase retarder passes through the first phase retarder after passing through the second phase retardation of the first phase retarder, reaches the reflective polarizer, and is reflected by the reflective polarizer, so that the light is reflected back to the first phase retarder again and is subjected to the third phase retardation, and then passes through the first phase retarder and the partially transmissive partially reflective element to reach the second phase retarder, and the lens may be disposed on any side of any one of the second phase retarder and the linear polarizer.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the first, second, third, and fourth phase delays are increased by phase delays of 1/4 odd multiples of the wavelength, so that the light reaching the human eye is delayed by an integer multiple of one wavelength.
According to the embodiment of the invention, when the light sent out by the display screen and entering the reflective polarizing element is polarized light, the light can be linearly polarized light, circularly polarized light or other polarized states, and at least one linear polarizer, circular polarizer or phase retarder can be added between the display screen and the reflective polarizing element according to the polarization condition of the display screen to adjust the polarization state of the display screen, and the added material can be a film material or an optical coating and the like and is arranged on the display screen or the reflective polarizing element in a coating, film coating or bonding mode. The linearly polarized light can be converted into left circularly polarized light or right circularly polarized light after passing through the first phase retarder.
According to the embodiment of the invention, the radius of the visual range of the display screen is H, the total length of the optical system is TTL, the distance from the eye to the center of the surface of the nearest element of the optical system is E, the half-field angle of the optical system is omega, and then
And is
And is
According to an embodiment of the invention, the optical system has an effective focal length F and the lens has a radius of curvature R on the side closer to the eye
1The radius of curvature of the side near the display screen is R
2,
Detailed Description
The invention provides a miniaturized short-distance optical system, which is applied to a head-mounted display, in particular to a virtual reality system of the head-mounted display.
Please refer to fig. 2 and fig. 3, which are a schematic diagram and an exploded view of an embodiment of a miniaturized short-distance optical system according to the present invention, in which a reflective polarizer 12, a first phase retarder 14, a partially transmissive partially reflective element 16, a second phase retarder 18, a linear polarizer 20, and a lens 22 are sequentially disposed between a display screen 10 and at least one human eye 24, wherein the display screen 10 outputs an image and emits light, which is polarized light or unpolarized light, and when the light is polarized light, the polarized light may be linearly polarized light, circularly polarized light, or other polarization states, in this embodiment, the light is linearly polarized light, and further, the polarization direction of the linearly polarized light in this embodiment is perpendicular to the optical path; the reflective polarization component 12 is arranged corresponding to the display screen 10, receives the polarized light emitted by the display screen 10, and partially penetrates and partially reflects the polarized light, and particularly, the reflective polarization component 12 adopted by the invention comprises two polarization directions which are vertical and parallel to a light path, so that the vertical polarized light can penetrate and the horizontal polarized light can be reflected; the first phase retarder 14 is disposed corresponding to the reflective polarizer 12, and is configured to receive the polarized light partially transmitted from the reflective polarizer 12, and perform first, second, and third phase retardations, wherein the polarized light of the first and third phase retardations is directed toward the human eye 24, and the polarized light of the second phase retardation is directed toward the display screen 10; the partially-transmitting partially-reflecting element 16 is disposed corresponding to the first phase retardation plate 14, receives the light passing through the first phase retardation plate 14, partially reflects and partially transmits the light passing through; the second phase retardation plate 18 is disposed corresponding to the partially-transmissive partially-reflective element 16, receives the light partially transmitted through the partially-transmissive partially-reflective element 16, and performs a fourth phase retardation; a linear polarizer 20 is disposed corresponding to the second phase retarder 18, the linear polarizer 20 is configured to let the polarized light with twice phase retardation not pass through and let the polarized light with four times phase retardation pass through, and a lens 22 is disposed on either side of any one of the above-mentioned optical systems to guide the image into the human eye 24.
The single lens 22 provided in the present invention may be a convex lens, as shown in fig. 3, the lens 22 may be provided on any one side of the reflective polarizer 12, the first phase retarder 14, the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16, the second phase retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20, and is used for adjusting the focal length, no matter between any two optical elements, to finally achieve the effect of shortening the optical system, whereas in the embodiment of fig. 2, the lens 22 is provided on the left side of the linear polarizer 20, near the human eye 24.
Specifically, the retardation of 1/4 wavelengths can be increased by the present invention in which the fast and slow axes of the first retarder 14 form an angle of 45 degrees with the transmission axis of the reflective polarizer 12.
Further, the lens 22 in the present invention may be an aspherical lens, a Fresnel lens (Fresnel lens), or a combination of a plurality of lenses.
Referring to fig. 4A to 4C, firstly in fig. 4A, the display screen 10 outputs an image and emits polarized light to the reflective polarizer 12, the reflective polarizer 12 makes part of the polarized light penetrate to the first phase retarder 14 and part of the polarized light is reflected back to the display screen 10, and the polarized light penetrating through the reflective polarizer 12 performs a first phase delay after passing through the first phase retarder 14 and then reaches the partially penetrating partial reflector 16; referring to fig. 4B, the polarized light after the first time phase retardation partially penetrates through the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16, and a part of the polarized light is reflected back to the first phase retarder 14 for the second time phase retardation, where the polarized light partially penetrating through the partially reflective element 16 is energy loss, and the polarized light after the first time phase retardation penetrates through the first phase retarder 14 and reaches the reflective polarizer 12; referring to fig. 4C again, the reflective polarizer 12 reflects the polarized light with the second phase retardation, reflects the reflected polarized light back to the first phase retarder 14 for the third phase retardation, and then passes through the partially transmissive partial reflector 16, so that the partially transmitted polarized light (with the third phase retardation) reaches the second phase retarder 18 for the fourth phase retardation; the fourth time phase-delayed polarized light is transmitted through the second phase retarder 18, and is screened by the linear polarizer 20, so that only the fourth time phase-delayed polarized light passes through the linear polarizer 20 and is guided by the lens 22 into at least one human eye 24.
Since the first phase retardation plate 14 and the second phase retardation plate 18 are both odd multiples of the phase retardation of 1/4 wavelengths, they are delayed by integer multiples of 1 wavelength after four times of phase retardation.
The linearly polarized light is converted into circularly polarized light after passing through the first phase retarder 14, and the circularly polarized light includes left circularly polarized light and right circularly polarized light. However, when part of the circularly polarized light is reflected back to the first retardation plate 14 by the partially transmissive and partially reflective element 16, the circularly polarized light is converted into linearly polarized light again, and then the linearly polarized light is converted into circularly polarized light through the first retardation plate 14, but is converted into linearly polarized light through the second retardation plate 18.
At least one linear polarizer, circular polarizer or phase retarder may be added between the display screen 10 and the reflective polarizer 12 according to the polarization condition of the display screen 10 to adjust the polarization state of the display screen 10, and the added material may be a film material or an optical coating, which is disposed on the display screen 10 or the reflective polarizer 12 in a coating, plating or bonding manner.
The present invention can achieve the effects of a larger viewing angle, a shorter system distance, and a better aberration correction, please refer to fig. 2, in which the lens 22 is L, the effective focal length thereof is F, the effective focal length of the optical system is F, the half field angle of the optical system is ω, the radius of the visible range of the display screen 10 is H, R1~R2The curvature radii of the left and right surfaces of the lens 22, respectively, the distance from the eye (aperture) to the center of the surface of the nearest element of the optical system is E, and the total length of the optical system is TTL, the following formula can be obtained:
the above formula (3) can achieve good aberration correction, while the formulas (1), (2) and (4) can achieve the advantages of larger viewing angle and shorter system distance (thinner and lighter).
The embodiment of fig. 2 can obtain specific experimental data as the following table one:
watch 1
A, B, C, D, E, etc. in the above table are parameters in the aspheric equation
Wherein C is 1/R, and R is a curvature radius. In the table, f is an effective focal length of the optical system, ω is a half field angle of the optical system, H is a visible range radius of the display screen, f1 is an effective focal length of the lens, Nd is a Refractive index (Refractive index), and Vd is an Abbe number (Abbe number) or a dispersion coefficient (V-number).
In the present invention, the reflective polarizer 12 and the partially transmissive and partially reflective element 16 may be a coating film coated on the lens 22, or a lens with reflective polarization function or an optical material in the form of a film attached to the lens 22, so that the present invention can attach the reflective polarizer 12 to the first retarder 14, attach the reflective polarizer 12 to the lens 22, attach the partially transmissive and partially reflective element 16 to the first retarder 14, attach the partially transmissive and partially reflective element 16 to the second retarder 18, attach the partially transmissive and partially reflective element 16 to the lens 22, and so on, thereby creating various embodiments.
In addition to the embodiment of fig. 2, various other embodiments of the lens 22 configuration are described below in fig. 5A to 5C, but these embodiments do not limit the configuration method of the lens 22 in the present invention, and the configuration of the lens 22 on any side of at least one of the reflective polarizer 12, the first retarder 14, the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16, the second retarder 18, and the linearly polarizing plate 20 is included in the scope of the present invention.
In the embodiment shown in fig. 5A, the lens 22 is disposed between the first phase retarder 14 and the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16, and the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16 is disposed on the lens 22, and in addition, the second phase retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20 may be integrated into the present invention, for example, as shown in fig. 5A, the second phase retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20 are on the same side of the lens 22, which may be equivalent to the function of a circular polarizer, and the second phase retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20 may be replaced by a circular polarizer. In this embodiment, a flat glass 26 is additionally provided before the polarized light is incident on the human eye 24 for protection. The specific data for this example are given in table two below:
watch two
In another embodiment, shown in FIG. 5B, the reflective polarizer 12 is disposed on the first retarder 14, and the lens 22 is disposed between the first retarder 14 and the partially transmissive partially reflective element 16. similarly to the embodiment of FIG. 5A, the second retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20 can be replaced by a circular polarizer, and a flat glass 26 is added before the polarized light is incident on the human eye 24. The specific data for this example is as follows table three:
watch III
In the embodiment of fig. 5C, the lens 22 is disposed between the reflective polarizer 12 and the first phase retarder 14, the reflective polarizer 12 of this embodiment is disposed on the right side of the lens 22, and the partially transmissive reflective element 16 can be disposed on the left side of the first phase retarder 14 or on the right side of the second phase retarder 18, similar to the embodiment of fig. 5A, the second phase retarder 18 and the linear polarizer 20 can be replaced by a circular polarizer, and a flat glass 26 is added before the polarized light is incident on the human eye 24. The specific data for this example is given in table four below:
watch four
The present invention utilizes the principle of polarization to internally fold and reflect the optical path in the optical system to achieve the effect of shortening the length of the optical system, as shown in the embodiments of fig. 2 and 5A to 5C, in the figure, the optical path of the optical module (not shown) after the polarized light is emitted from the display screen 10 to the front of the human eye 24 undergoes multiple reflections, assuming that the optical path of the light after the length of each reflection from the display screen 10 to the optical module is summed up is d, which is nearly the same as the optical path d from the display screen 10 to the optical module 23 in the prior art of fig. 1, but because in the embodiments of fig. 2 and 5A to 5C, the optical path of the polarized light after being emitted from the display screen 10 to the optical module before the human eye 24 is summed up by multiple reflections, the length from the display screen 10 to the optical module is actually much shorter than the length from the display screen 10 to the optical module 23 in fig. 1, the purpose of shortening the length of the optical system is achieved.
The fifth table below is the calculation results of the embodiments of fig. 2 and fig. 5A to 5C nested in the above equations (1) to (4).
Watch five
In summary, the miniaturized short-distance optical system provided by the present invention sequentially places a plurality of optical elements behind the display screen and in front of the optical module, and utilizes multiple reflections of light to achieve the purpose of shortening the length of the optical system, and utilizes the phase retarder to perform four-time phase retardation, so that the phase of the polarization state of the polarized light is delayed by an integral multiple of one wavelength from the phase of the polarization state emitted from the display screen at the beginning when the polarization state of the polarized light finally reaches the optical module. The invention further utilizes the design of a single lens to achieve the purpose of short-distance miniaturization, can still keep good aberration correction, is suitable for wide-angle lenses or wide-angle eyepieces, and has a visual angle of more than 50 degrees.
The above description is only for the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Therefore, all the equivalent changes or modifications of the features and the spirit of the present invention described in the claims should be included in the scope of the present invention.