Maxwellian-view near-eye display with switchable viewpoints based on liquid crystal beam steering devices

The Maxwellian-view near-eye display inherently delivers an always-in-focus image, which effectively mitigates the vergence-accommodation conflict. However, it suffers from a narrow eyebox. To overcome this challenge, we propose a Maxwellian augmented reality display architecture with an expanded eyebox, enabled by a non-mechanical liquid crystal beam steering module. Specifically, the beam steering module consists of multiple cascaded stages of stacked electrically switchable half-wave plates and Pancharatnam-Berry deflectors. For experimental validation, a proof-of-concept prototype is constructed to validate the feasibility of our proposal. Experimental results confirm that the system retains an always-in-focus image while providing 4 × 4 switchable viewpoints, thereby effectively expanding the eyebox from 3 mm × 3 mm to 12 mm × 12 mm.