Virtuality Laser Display

The Virtuality Laser Display essentially provides an electro-optical analogue of a rotating diffuser wheel to despeckle the laser illumination in a very compact size. It essentially enables laser diodes for projection applications. There is the additional benefit of beam-shaping the light to match the microdisplay The Virtuality Laser Display uses phase diversity and relies on a Fourier imaging scheme.
“Objective” speckle results from scattering in the illumination system. Objective speckle is not viewer dependent. Below is the laser pico projector developed for Hewlett Packard exhibited at CES, 2011. As you can see it was both small and fold away compact. The laser speckle was less than 5% Speckle Contrast.

“Subjective” speckle occurs at the projection screen and is eye dependent. The only remedy for subjective speckle is to use a fast projection lens, ie with an F-number of F/1.0 or faster. In general, subjective speckle dominates in front projection systems while objective speckle is more important in RPTV. In common with rotating diffusers the Virtuality Laser Display only removes only objective speckle”.

In front projection it is estimated that subjective speckle accounts for 85-90% of observed speckle. Therefore, at best, the current D-ILC can only account for 10-15%.
Subjective speckle is difficult to eliminate in front projection, To the best of our knowledge there is no relevant prior art (apart from “vibrating screens” , which are not viable for portable projectors). Patented and published despeckler schemes all essentially solve objective speckle – even where this is not made explicit.
Very recently, SBG has made some breakthroughs in understanding how subjective speckle may be eliminated. Virtuality are now working on a new version of our Virtuality Laser Display that may overcome both objective and subjective speckle.

Picture below of the Virtuality / Hewlett Packard laser pico projector.

Virtuality / Hewlett Packard laser pico projector in a laptop case