Today’s displays incorporate LEDs either by way of self-emitting pixels like OLED or through backlight techniques like LCD, QLED, and Mini-LED. Still, brightness has always been a constraint, especially in open environments or when a transparent screen is needed.
With profitable Meta’s Q2 earnings, engineers at Meta have created an extremely thin laser-powered panel that raises brightness and color performance to previously unheard-of levels in order to address this problem. Published in Nature, their study details a device only two millimeters thick. Fundamentally, a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), a chip that uses lasers and incorporates thousands of optical elements, is at its core. Providing Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080), this PIC is coupled with a small 5 x 5 mm LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) panel.
This novel construction lowers thickness by 80% and enlarges the color range by more than 200% when compared to traditional LCoS technology. This Meta’s 2mm laser prototype departs considerably from another Meta project developed in conjunction with Stanford University: a holographic but opaque display meant for virtual reality headsets. On the other hand, this fresh screen is clear, vivid, and has already been tested within augmented reality glasses.
Laser-based displays have some downsides despite their benefits. A major worry is the shimmering effect frequently connected with lasers; yet, engineers have proposed ways to minimize this effect. Furthermore, there is the difficulty of boosting production capacity: visible-spectrum lasers are vital for mass manufacturing, a process not yet entirely perfected beyond the telecoms wavelengths.
Even with these problems, the Meta’s 2mm laser design is appropriate for industrial manufacturing, implying that augmented reality glasses with this technology might be on the market sooner than expected. Moreover, the possible uses of the same will go well beyond glasses. The same PIC architecture could also power the next-generation smartphone displays and make them thin, along with energy-efficient holographic screens.
