Designing with holograms

This learning path covers everything you should know to effectively model holograms in OpticStudio. You will learn about the different models available in sequential and non-sequential modes, how to visualize your hologram and how to use it for aberration correction. Discover how holograms can be used to couple light into an Augmented Reality (AR) waveguide, and how you can make your model more realistic by taking the hologram efficiency into account.

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Holograms are very versatile optical elements that can be used to achieve compact and light systems. They are effectively employed in a wide variety of applications, and in recent years have been especially valuable in the design of Augmented Reality headsets. This article describes the main characteristics of holograms and gives an overview of the hologram models available in OpticStudio.

How to model holograms in OpticStudio
When designing an optical hologram, it is often important to analyze the fringe frequency on the element to ensure manufacturability. This lesson demonstrates how to perform such investigation into the sequential Hologram 1, Hologram 2, and Optically Fabricated Hologram surface types by creating a User Analyses using the ZOS-API.

Analyzing hologram construction fringes with a ZOS-API User Analysis
This tutorial shows how an Optically Fabricated Hologram (OFH) can be used to reduce the aberrations of a singlet lens. After describing the two ZMX files representing the hologram construction beams, the article demonstrates how to set up the OFH in the playback file. It then explains how to easily access any construction beams variables from the playback file, as to achieve a diffraction limited singlet.

How to use the Optically Fabricated Hologram to correct for aberrations
AR systems commonly use holograms to couple light into the waveguides they use to transport light from the display engine to the wearer's eye. This two-part lesson demonstrates how to use a hologram surface in OpticStudio as an in-coupler to a planar waveguide structure.

Modelling a holographic waveguide for Augmented Reality (AR) systems: part 1
Modelling a holographic waveguide for Augmented Reality (AR) systems: part 2
This lesson introduces a model which fully simulate volume holographic gratings considering physical properties, such as diffraction efficiency, shrinkage, and index shift. These properties are important for designing systems like head mounted display (HMD) and head up display (HUD).

Simulating diffraction efficiency of a volume holographic grating using Kogelnik’s method