No abstract

Laser scanners have been an integral part of MEMS research for more than three decades. During the last decade, miniaturized projection displays and various medicalimaging applications became the main driver for progress in MEMS laser scanners. Portable and truly miniaturized projectors became possible with the availability of red, green, and blue diode lasers during the past few years. Inherent traits of the laser scanning technology, such as the very large color gamut, scalability to higher resolutions within the same footprint, and capability of producing an always-in-focus image render it a very viable competitor in mobile projection. Here, we review the requirements on MEMS laser scanners for the demanding display applications, performance levels of the best scanners in the published literature, and the advantages and disadvantages of electrostatic, electromagnetic, piezoelectric, and mechanically coupled actuation principles. Resonant high-frequency scanners, low-frequency linear scanners, and 2-D scanners are included in this review. [2013-0235]

This overview covers most of the 3-D displays that are in use today and presents recent developments and advances in this field.

After the invention of lasers, in the past 50 years progress made in laser-based display technology has been very promising, with commercial products awaiting release to the mass market. Compact laser systems, such as edge-emitting diodes, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, and optically pumped semiconductor lasers, are suitable candidates for laser-based displays. Laser speckle is an important concern, as it degrades image quality. Typically, one or multiple speckle reduction techniques are employed in laser displays to reduce speckle contrast. Likewise, laser safety issues need to be carefully evaluated in designing laser displays under different usage scenarios. Laser beam shaping using refractive and diffractive components is an integral part of laser displays, and the requirements depend on the source specifications, modulation technique, and the scanning method being employed in the display. A variety of laser-based displays have been reported, and many products such as pico projectors and laser televisions are commercially available already.

The display is the last component in a chain of activity from image acquisition, compression, coding transmission and reproduction of 3-D images through to the display itself. There are various schemes for 3-D display taxonomy; the basic categories adopted for this paper are: holography where the image is produced by wavefront reconstruction, volumetric where the image is produced within a volume of space and multiple image displays where two or more images are seen across the viewing field. In an ideal world a stereoscopic display would produce images in real time that exhibit all the characteristics of the original scene. This would require the wavefront to be reproduced accurately, but currently this can only be achieved using holographic techniques. Volumetric displays provide both vertical and horizontal parallax so that several viewers can see 3-D images that exhibit no accommodation/convergence rivalry. Multiple image displays fall within three fundamental types: holoform in which a large number of views give smooth motion parallax and hence a hologram-like appearance, multiview where a series of discrete views are presented across viewing field and binocular where only two views are presented in regions that may occupy fixed positions or follow viewers' eye positions by employing head tracking. Holography enables 3-D scenes to be encoded into an interference pattern, however, this places constraints on the display resolution necessary to reconstruct a scene. Although holography may ultimately offer the solution for 3DTV, the problem of capturing naturally lit scenes will first have to be solved and holography is unlikely to provide a short-term solution due to limitations in current enabling technologies. Liquid crystal, digital micromirror, optically addressed liquid crystal and acoustooptic spatial light modulators (SLMs) have been employed as suitable spatial light modulation devices in holography. Liquid crystal SLMs are generally favored owing to the commercial availability of high fill factor, high resolution addressable devices. Volumetric displays provide Manuscript both vertical and horizontal parallax and several viewers are able to see a 3-D image that exhibits no accommodation/convergence rivalry. However, the principal disadvantages of these displays are: the images are generally transparent, the hardware tends to be complex and non-Lambertian intensity distribution cannot be displayed. Multiple image displays take many forms and it is likely that one or more of these will provide the solution(s) for the first generation of 3DTV displays.