Patent ID: 8848289

Claim:
An apparatus for a head mounted display, comprising: a waveguide including: an eye-ward side and an ambient side between which polarized image light of a first polarization is guided; and a viewing region for directing the polarized image light out of the waveguide through the eye-ward side, wherein the viewing region of the waveguide passes ambient light incident on the ambient side through to the eye-ward side; an ambient light polarizer disposed adjacent to the ambient side along the viewing region of the waveguide to polarize the ambient light into polarized ambient light having a second polarization orthogonal to the first polarization; and a wire grid polarizer disposed adjacent to the eye-ward side along the viewing region of the waveguide, the wire grid polarizer including a diffraction lens having a lens function patterned into the wire grid polarizer, wherein the wire grid polarizer is oriented to pass the polarized ambient light substantially unaffected by the lens function while applying the lens function to the polarized image light via diffraction.