Multifocal near-eye display with a vari-focal lens and adjustable aperture

Multifocal near-eye displays present three-dimensional images by creating multiple image planes at different depths within eye integration time. The refresh rate of the usual display panel is, however, not sufficiently fast, which results in flickering for a large number of image planes or limited depth coverage for a small number of the image planes. In this paper, we propose a method to optimize the depth of field of each image plane, resolving the flickering issue by using fewer image planes while still ensuring broader coverage. The depth of field of each image plane is controlled by adjusting the effective lens aperture size using a spatial light modulator. The proposed method is verified by optical experiments and analysis.