Patent ID: 9442291
Filing Date: 2016-09-13
CPC Classification: G02B

Claim Text:
1. An optical combiner for a head-wearable display, comprising: an eyepiece body having an eye-ward side and an external scene side; and a plurality of diffractive optical element (“DOE”) segments disposed within the eyepiece body, wherein the DOE segments are at least partially reflective to image light incident through the eye-ward side of the eyepiece body and at least partially transmissive to external scene light incident through the external scene side of the eyepiece body, wherein the DOE segments are disjoint from each other and each of the DOE segments is a diffraction grating disposed along a different disjoint surface within the eyepiece body that is oriented at a different angle relative to the different disjoint surfaces of the other DOE segments, wherein the plurality of DOE segments operate to magnify and reflect the image light incident from an off-axis position to an eyebox sized area, wherein each of the different disjoint surfaces is a curved surface and each of the DOE segments is a reflective diffraction grating disposed on a different disjoint curved surface, wherein each of the DOE segments is a hybrid optical element that provides optical power in reflection due in a first part to a curvature of the curved surface and due in a second part to diffraction from the reflective diffraction grating disposed on the curved surface.