Development of advanced sequential ray tracing simulator for lens systems using multi-functional holographic optical elements

We introduce, to our knowlede, a new development result about an advanced sequential ray tracing simulation model for lens systems including various holographic optical elements (HOEs), which can be used in the commercial program (Ansys Zemax Opticstudio) as an 'User Defined Surface (UDS)'. Our model provides integrated analysis functions of sequential ray tracing and diffraction efficiency calculation for HOEs under various recording conditions. In particular, advanced HOEs with complex wavefront reconstruction properties enabling color and angle multiplexing, arbitrary astigmatic beam generation, and holographic lens arrays are implemented in the proposed UDS. To our knowledge, it is the first time that the complex HOE functions have been demonstrated in a sequential ray tracing simulator. The authors expect that the proposed simulation model can contribute to reducing the optimization time with trials and errors for optical systems using HOEs such as head-up or head-mount displays.