Design of optical system for head-mounted micro-display

Assembling one optical imaging system with 0.56" liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS), we achieved one practical head-mounted micro-display system for civilian applications. The optical system consists of three refractive elements and one binary surface. It has a 32 degrees field of view (FOV), a 10 mm exit pupil diameter, and a 20 mm eye clearance distance. Compared with the traditional optical system, the hybrid refractive/diffractive system has a longer working distance and can be used in higher resolution display with better image quality. Designing results indicate that the introducing of binary element in the system with smaller FOV could improve the image quality dramatically. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.