Seminars

A light-field display aims to render the perception of a 3D scene by reproducing the geometric light rays apparently emitted by the 3D scene in different directions. It is potentially capable of delivering a visual experience that is natural and comfortable, and overcomes the well-known vergence-accommodation conflicts that plaque conventional stereoscopic 3D (S3D) displays.  In this seminar, Hua will review the different optical architectures of light-field displays and focus particularly on the recent development of head-mounted light-field displays (LF-HMDs).  

Hong Hua is currently a professor with the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences (OSC), University of Arizona. With over 25 years of experience, Hua is widely recognized through academia and industry as an expert in 3D display technologies, complex visualization systems, image-acquisition technologies, and optical engineering in general.  Her current research focuses on a wide range of optical technologies enabling advanced 3D displays, especially head-worn display technologies for virtual- and augmented-reality applications, as well as microscopic and endoscopic imaging systems for medicine. She is the recipient of many awards and honors, including Fellow of SPIE, OSA, and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). She was also a Finalist for the Innovator of the Year-Academia in the 2020 and 2021 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards, as well as a Finalist for the Tucson Women of Influence 2020 in the category of Technology Champion. She has published 250+ technical papers and presentations, including 100+ peer-reviewed journal and proceeding papers, one book, three book chapters, and numerous plenary speeches and invited colloquial addresses at academic institutions and major scientific conferences world-wide.

Moderator: Nikhil Balram, Mojo Vision

Light engines play a critical role in the performances of augmented-reality and virtual-reality displays, affecting field-of-view, resolution density, ambient contrast ratio, and power consumption. Some competing light-engine technologies, such as high-dynamic-range miniLED backlit LCDs, LCoS, OLEDs, microLED displays, MEMS, and laser beam scanners will be reviewed in this seminar.   .

Shin-Tson Wu is a Pegasus professor at the College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida (UCF). Prior to joining UCF in 2001, he was with Hughes Research Labs (Malibu, California) for 18 years. He is among the first six inductees to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame, a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA, SID, and SPIE. He is a recipient of the Optica (formerly OSA) Edwin H. Land medal (2022), SPIE Maria Goeppert Mayer Award (2022), OSA Esther Hoffman Beller Medal (2014), SID Slottow-Owaki Prize (2011), OSA Joseph Fraunhofer Award (2010), SPIE G. G. Stokes Award (2008), and SID Jan Rajchman Prize (2008). He has co-authored 7 books and 650 journal papers and obtained 192 patents, including 93 U.S. patents. In the past, he served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/OSA Journal of Display Technology, OSA publications council chair and board member, and SID honors and awards committee chair.

Moderator: Nikhil Balram, Mojo Vision

With recent advances in extended reality (XR) technologies that cover augmented, mixed, and virtual reality (AR, MR, VR), and the increasing availability of cutting-edge hardware, the distance between people and information is disappearing. New, smart technologies can ease the access of information in all aspects of living, leading people toward “the smart life.” This presentation aims to point out the applications, development trends, key technologies, current challenges, and prospects of extended technologies within the frame of both wearable and non-wearable devices. It will also present a review of the state-of-the-art for XR technologies, comprising displays, positioning and navigation, interaction, remote collaboration, and motion sickness technologies.

Kuan-Ting Chen is currently the deputy R&D director of Electronic and Optoelectronic System Laboratories, ITRI. With more than 15 years of R&D experience, his key areas of focus are flexible AMOLED, transparent displays, and transparent display interactive systems. The R&D team he leads has successfully developed a foldable touch AMOLED that exhibits good optical performance and mechanical strength. In addition, he leads a team that is developing the world’s first transparent display interactive system. This system quickly corresponds to a target object in a scene according to the user's gaze direction, and immediately displays the relevant object information on the transparent display, realizing an augmented-reality function. This system offers users a brand-new interactive experience, and further strengthens the link between users, targets, and dissemination of information. Chen has received ITRI’s Outstanding Research Award for four consecutive years -- 2018 to 2021.

Moderator: Fang-Cheng Lin, Apple

In order for AR/MR technology to become popular, the AR/MR glasses must be lightweight, comfortable, and capable of providing excellent visual performance. Naturally immersive functionality provides a better user experience. The following features are key to developing  the appropriate display optics: high resolution with enough FoV, high brightness for outdoor use, large eye-box, prescription correction, and vergence-accommodation conflict solving for comfort and wearability. With the above targets, Coretronic, a 25-year-old projector developer, has focused on R&D in display optics for tiny projection technologies for AR/MR/VR applications since 2014. This seminar will review the design for compact optical engines as well as current light-field development for AR and VR at Coretronic. Chuang will also discuss plastic-type waveguide development, covering benefits, design philosophy, and manufacturing difficulties for this technology.

Fu-Ming (Fleming) Chuang received his B.S. from National Cheng Kung University in 1984 and his Master’s and Ph.D.from the Optical-Electronic Science Institute of the National Central University Chung-Li, Taiwan, in 1986 and 1995, respectively, majoring in optical system design. He has been working in the optical industry for more than 35 years. Chuang started his career in the military, working on optical system design projects such as Low-Light-Level (L3) imaging and thermal imaging for missile and surveillance systems. After that, he focused on diversified optics developments such as lenses for digital cameras, projection, microscopy, spectrometers, CCM lenses, interferometers, imaging systems, microstructures for optics, backlighting for LCDs, stereo displays, optics for automotive, head-up displays, head-mounted displays, light-field optics, and more. One of his current research interests is light-field optics and systems including near-to-eye displays and imaging system applications. He holds more than 150 patents. Chuang is a former CTO of Coretronic Corp., and is currently founder of Shanswii International Ltd. Co. He has also served as vice president of 3DIDA Taiwan and as a board member of SID’s Taipei chapter.

Moderator: Jongseo Lee, Google

Recent innovative video technology enables us to use moving images with a variety of display systems, including large flat-panel displays and head-mounted displays; the proliferation of the latter has brought virtual reality into the spotlight. However, depending on the use of the images, undesirable biomedical effects such as visually induced motion sickness/VR sickness and visual fatigue may occur. To use images comfortably and safely, it is important to sufficiently consider these effects, i.e. image safety. This seminar introduces major findings for image safety as well as the current international guidelines based on these findings.

Hiroyasu Ujike received his Dr. Eng. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1991. He is currently a Chief Senior Researcher in the Human Informatics and Interaction Research Institute, AIST, Japan. His major research areas are visual psychophysics, visual ergonomics, and image safety.

Moderator: Kalil Käläntär, Global Optical Solutions

Bright-light performance is the main differentiator for outdoor display technologies. LCD, LED, micro-LED, and e-Paper technologies will be presented and discussed in this seminar, with a focus on their sweet spots for outdoor applications. Further topics include optical evaluation and application requirements.

Karlheinz Blankenbach has three decades of experience in displays. From 1988 until 1995 he was with AEG-MIS (a Mercedes subsidiary) in Germany, developing display electronics, e-signage LCDs, and software. In 1995 he was appointed to full professor at Pforzheim University, Germany, where he founded the university’s Display Lab. His main R&D activities are (automotive) display topics such as optical measurements, display systems, evaluations, HMI, and LEDs, as well as display hardware and software. Blankenbach is a member of the Society for Information Display’s program subcommittee, Automotive/Vehicular Displays and HMI Technologies, and a member of SID’s International Committee for Display Metrology. He has served as a member of the board of the Displayforum (DFF) since 2000; after nine years as chairman, he was appointed to honorary chairman in 2020.

Moderator: Ingo Rotscholl, TechnoTeam Bildverarbeitung GmbH

While the thin-film transistor continues to evolve, producing devices with higher mobility, steeper sub-threshold slope, and lower threshold voltage, practical-signal processing circuits are constrained by issues related to non-uniformity, electrically and illumination-induced instability, and temperature dependence. This seminar will review the critical design considerations of displays, sensors, and sensor interfaces, along with advanced signal-processing architectures to show how device-circuit interactions should be handled and how compensation methods can be implemented. A key design consideration in flexible electronics, particularly for wearables and sensing applications, is low voltage, low-power operation. This requirement not only serves to maximize battery lifetime but crucially ensures operational stability of thin-film transistor (TFT) circuits and systems. Ultralow voltage/current operation is especially important in sensor interfaces to achieve a high resolution of the sensory signal. Nathan will present TFT design and materials selection strategies for ultralow power operation along with processing conditions for suppressing the interface trap density.

Arokia Nathan is currently a Bye-Fellow and Tutor at Darwin College, University of Cambridge, UK. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada, in 1988. He joined LSI Logic USA, and subsequently, the Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH, in Zürich, Switzerland, before joining the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo, Canada. In 2006, he joined the London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, UK, as the Sumitomo Chair of Nano-technology. He moved to Cambridge University in 2011 as the Chair of Photonic Systems and Displays. He has more than 600 publications, including six books, and more that 110 patents and four spin-off companies. He is a Fellow of IEEE and SID, a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Electron Devices Society and Sensor Council, a Chartered Engineer (UK), Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK), and winner of the 2020 IEEE EDS JJ Ebers Award.

Moderator: Ian Underwood, University of Edinburgh.

Ultrathin, mechanically flexible, and stretchable electronics are essential elements for the realization of new electronic devices. In particular, they are becoming increasingly important in medicine, healthcare, nursing care, and robotics. However, it is not easy to achieve both mechanical flexibility and electrical stability and reliability. In this seminar, Sekitani will introduce the research background, objectives, current state-of-the-art research and applications, remaining issues, and future prospects of electronics with ultimate thinness, flexibility, and stretchability.

Tsuyoshi Sekitani received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2003. In 2014, he was promoted to full professor in SANKEN at Osaka University, and in 2017, he received the title of Osaka University Distinguished Professor. His major research areas are functional materials, nanoprocesses, and flexible and stretchable electronics.

Moderator: Ian Underwood, University of Edinburgh

MicroLED microdisplays are considered one of the most important candidates for AR/VR/XR technology because of their superior properties, including high efficiency, high sunlight visibility and dynamic range, high pixel density, low power consumption, and small form factor. In this seminar, microLED microdisplay issues such as array fabrication, active-matrix driving scheme, and integration technologies will be reviewed.    

Zhaojun (George) Liu is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology. His research topics cover micro-LEDs, advanced displays, AR/VR/XR, and wearable devices. He has co-authored four books and over 120 papers and holds 115 patents. He served as co-chair of the QD & MicroLED Special Session at SID’s Display Week 2018, and is a member of the Emissive, MicroLED, and QD (EMQ) program subcommittee for Display Week. He received SID’s Peter Brody Prize in 2020 for his pioneer work in active-matrix microLED displays. Liu is general secretary for the Guangdong Micro-LED Alliance (MiLEDA) and co-founder of Shenzhen SiTan Tech., Ltd.

Moderator: Grace Lee, Google

Holographic near-to-eye displays promise unprecedented capabilities for virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) systems. However, the image quality achieved by traditional holographic displays is limited, and algorithms for computer-generated holography (CGH) are slow. This seminar covers a family of neural holography advances that leverage the advantages of camera-based optimization and neural-network model representation to deliver dynamic, full-color, high-quality holographic images. Driven by trending machine intelligence, these jointly optimized hardware-software holography techniques can unlock the full potential of VR/AR/MR systems.

Yifan (Evan) Peng is a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University. His research interest spans the interdisciplinary fields of optics/photonics, computer graphics, computer vision, and AI. Much of his recent work concerns developing visual computing modalities that combine optics and machine intelligence for both cameras and displays. He completed his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of British Columbia, and his M.Sc. and B.Eng. in Optical Science and Engineering at Zhejiang University.

Moderator: Jennifer Gille

Quantum dots (QDs) have become a mainstay in modern display technology and they continue to evolve and improve. Initially QDs were leveraged to enhance LCD color gamut and brightness, but now they can be paired with OLED and even microLED to further enrich the viewing experience. This seminar will cover the different types of QDs, their chemistry and optical properties, and the multitude of ways this technology can be implemented to improve display performance. 

Peter Palomaki is the owner and chief scientist at Palomaki Consulting, LLC, where he consults with companies around the world on understanding, characterizing, and implementing QD and other nanomaterial technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Rensselaer and has developed QD-enabled optical technologies at National Renewable Energy Laboratory along with multiple companies, including QD Vision. He has become a trusted speaker, writer, and QD industry veteran on whom clients rely for his problem-solving capabilities and deep network in the display industry.

Moderator: Abhishek Srivastava, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology