Engineering

Our team can assist you with everything from idea and IP creation to prototyping and productization. Here, you'll find our areas of expertise.

Lens Design & Tolerancing

At Reality Optics, we specialize in designing lenses and curved mirrors for various applications, ranging from cameras, projectors, laser systems, head-up and head-mounted displays, spectrometers, and scanning lenses. Our team is highly skilled in the computational design of freeform optics for off-axis imaging and sensing. We understand the challenges and benefits of moving to freeform designs. We also have extensive experience in designing homogeneous and heterogeneous lens arrays for light-field displays and cameras, wavefront sensors, and illumination systems.

We provide end-to-end services, from the specification of the lens and design process to modeling the system’s performance and prototyping. Our design team will collaborate with you to find the best solution for your application, budget, and timeframe. We can either help you select an off-the-shelf lens, design a custom lens system with off-the-shelf elements, or design custom a lens. We can also help you partner with external manufacturers to scale your lens design production.

Digital Diffractive Optics

Diffractive optics is one of our core competencies. Our team has extensive experience in designing and manufacturing static Diffractive Optical Elements (DOEs) for various applications, including structured illumination for depth sensing (both stereo and ToF), Surface Relief Gratings (SRGs) for AR waveguides, microrelief elements for visual security features, and beam splitting for telecommunication applications.

We also have extensive experience with dynamic holography and real-time Computer-Generated Hologram (CGH) calculation in applications such as holographic video projectors, optical tweezers, computational imaging, incoherent illumination systems, adaptive free-space optical links, and real-time wavefront error correction.

If you need any assistance with the practical aspects of your work, we can help you find the best manufacturer for your DOEs or the best dynamic device for your application. Our team has experience with high-power glass DOEs, low-cost embossed DOEs, and all dynamic phase devices, including reflective Liquid Crystal over Silicon (LCoS), transmissive LCDs, DMDs, and deformable mirrors.

Analog Holography

In analogue holography, the 3D phase profile is formed optically on a photosensitive medium by the interference of two or more beams. Over the past two decades, advances in recording materials and processes have led to new applications of analogue holography. These include head-up, head-mounted and 3D displays, data storage, solar concentrators, and pulse compression. The revival of analogue holography in optics is partly due to the improvement of photorefractive polymers, which make it easier to record and develop them.

At Reality Optics, we have extensive experience in all aspects of analogue holography, from vibration isolation and materials to optimal recording and replay setups. We have worked with all available materials, such as Dichromated Gelatin (DCG), Silver Halide, 100’s μm thick photopolymers, and Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3). Our team can model the material’s optical characteristics, including shrinkage, internal attenuation, angular and wavelength selectivity. We combine analytical methods such as Kogelnik’s coupled wave theory, numerical methods such as RCWA, and commercial software to obtain reliable and verified results.

Radiometry, Photometry, and Colorimetry

High-contrast displays with excellent colour uniformity, free from imperfections and accurate colour reproduction, are now essential for all applications. For non-display applications, precise modelling and measurement of optical power flow through a system are critical to its design and optimisation.

Our company has its roots in the display industry, and our team has core expertise in Photometry and Colorimetry. Our experts have worked with global display suppliers, and they have extensive experience with various display technologies, including flat panel displays, Backlight Units (BLUs), and 3D, head-mounted, and head-up displays. We have experience with electro-optical measurement and characterisation, front-of-screen image quality analysis, colour science, and human factors.

We worked in many areas of radiometry, including Free-Space Optical (FSO) telecommunications, IR imaging, and microscopy. We are particularly strong in optical microscopy, with experience in light, fluorescent, confocal, and sheet microscopy and unique know-how in PCR-type devices. Having worked from UV to mid-IR, we understand the challenges (and opportunities!) of designing optical systems at wavelengths where material, source and detector choice is restricted.

Production, Optomechanics, and FEA

Prototyping and manufacturing are central to Reality Optics’ philosophy. Our team of experts will consider the production process from the beginning of our collaboration and whether you need to produce small or large volumes. We have a team of professionals who specialize in optomechanics and production line setup, ensuring that design decisions made in the early stages of a project won’t negatively impact the final product.

Our optomechanical team provides various services, including designing and manufacturing optical component mounts, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling, material selection, visualizations, and manufacturing drawings.

Lastly, our team can help you set up a production line. We have experience not only in the physical design of the production line but also in testing, standard operating procedures (SOP), quality control (QC) methods, and statistics. A seamless collaboration of optical, mechanical, and manufacturing engineers ensures a smooth transition from the benchtop prototype to a production line. We provide detailed manufacturing drawings, integrate geometric tolerances, and guarantee a flawless assembly during the first-time production.

Illumination Systems

Our team has extensive experience with illumination optics and their use in various applications, such as microscope illuminators (including Kohler illumination, fluorescence excitation lasers, and confocal), homogenizers for video projectors (including fly’s eye homogenizers, coherent and incoherent sources, and despeclers), light pipes for illumination, IR illuminators for video and depth sensing (including “clean” and structured lighting), and more.

We can assist you in specifying the problem, selecting the appropriate type of optics (e.g., TIR, light pipe, reflector), and system architecture, and designing the optical system. We utilize commercial and internally developed software tools to provide maximum flexibility in our designs while maintaining the confidence of industry-standard tools.

We can deliver the optical design of your system along with reports containing detailed simulation results and performance parameters such as uniformity, efficiency, color temperature, and projected cost. Additionally, we can design the CAD model and assist with the manufacturing process.

Optical Interconnects & Beam Steering

Reality Optics specializes in wireless and free-space optical (FSO) communications and optically transparent data switching. Our experienced engineers have worked with numerous technology applications, including optical interconnects between PCBs, rack-to-rack interconnects in data centres, wavelength selective switches, reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), and long-distance eye-of-sight communications. We worked with static links, dynamic links, one-to-one and one-to-many links. We are experts in dynamically reconfigurable and adaptive links utilizing LCOS, DMDs (e.g., TI DLP devices), Ferroelectric devices and deformable mirrors.

Our experience in free-space optical interconnects goes beyond optics. We deeply understand optomechanical design, optimization algorithms, and existing technologies that can help optimize the efficiency and propagation distance while minimizing the cost and power of the receiver and transmitter. Designing a successful optical link requires a strong understanding of Gaussian beam propagation, and our team of experts at Reality Optics has many years of experience modelling such systems.

RCWA, TTM, FDTD

Electromagnetic Modelling (EM) and diffractive effects have long been the core experteese of Reality Optics. Our expertise covers various areas of computational EM, including Fourier Optics, the Transfer Matrix Method (TMM), Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA), and Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD).

We specialize in EM modeling of periodic structures. Case studies include Surface Relief Gratings (SRGs) for Exit Pupil Expansion (EPE) waveguides, ruled gratings for spectroscopy, and moth-like anti-reflection coatings. Additionally, we have experience in designing conventional anti-reflection coatings using various material combinations.

Specifically for Augmented Reality waveguides, we can model profiles such as slanted, blazed, and binary gratings. We can calculate their angular response in 2D angle-space for both polarizations and simulate their performance when integrated into an EPE waveguide.

Planar Waveguides & Lightguides

At Reality Optics, we specialize in planar waveguides and light guides. Our team has over a decade of experience working with Exit Pupil Expansion (EPE) and non-EPE waveguides and light guides, and is well-versed in the technology’s opportunities and challenges. We have the skills and expertise to model the small but critical details of optical systems and in parallel provide a high-level view of the technology as it enters the consumer and enterprise markets.

In terms of EPE waveguides, we have extensive experience with the two most commonly used families of waveguides, namely SRG-based diffractive waveguides and reflective waveguides. We also have exceptional knowledge of VBG-based and multiplexed holographic waveguides. We can assist in deciding and designing new waveguide architectures, as well as in modeling existing waveguides in detail, such as how the local wedge and slope of a waveguide substrate affect the color uniformity in the eye box. We can perform grating optimization for diffractive waveguides, help optimize the geometry of reflective waveguides, and determine the waveguide design depending on the HMD specifications.

Regarding non-pupil replicating light guides, we have experience working with curved and wedged waveguides that can be used in a wide range of applications, from flat panel displays and imaging to illumination and pupil steering.

MR Optics & Visual Perception

Our team specializes in Mixed Reality and has extensive experience in the field. With decades of cumulative expertise predating the current multi-billion-dollar industry investment, we are well-equipped to assist you in designing, simulating, building, and optimizing your wearable display. We worked from small field-of-view AR devices to wide field-of-view VR devices.

We can help you select the most suitable technology for your optical system based on factors such as field of view, resolution, form factor, cost, and power consumption specifications. Taking into consideration your timeline, production volume, and custom fitting requirements, we can guide you through optics design, technology selection for modulators and sensors, and integration decisions.

Our team of optical engineers has extensive experience with most AR and VR optical technologies, including pancake lenses (glass, plastic, cylindrical, holographic), Fresnel lenses (hybrid and conventional), holographic optics, diffractive elements, and MLA-based displays (i.e., tesselated optics). We are also proficient in using optical modulators such as LCOS, OLED, μLED, DMD, and Laser Beam Scanners.

Additionally, we have visual perception experts who can help optimize your device’s performance and enhance the overall user experience.

2D and 3D Displays

Our team incorporates experts with strong backgrounds in 2D and 3D displays, offering specialized knowledge in various display technologies such as OLED, LCD, OLED on Silicon, and micro-LED. Whether you are a display manufacturer or display user, we can provide tailored assistance to meet your specific requirements.

Moreover, we bring extensive experience in designing, simulating, and constructing 3D displays, including diverse technologies such as lenticular arrays, MLAs, stereoscopic, autostereoscopic, paraxial barrier, and compressive light field displays.

Additionally, our in-house experts in visual perception of 2D and 3D images can offer valuable insights to optimize the 3D experience, address challenges such as Vergence Accommodation Conflict, and make informed decisions regarding spatial resolution, quantization, and refresh rate.