Augmented Reality: A breakthrough in high-index glass wafers

SCHOTT unveils RealView, a breakthrough in high-index glass wafers that allows more immersive augmented reality (AR) applications and doubles the total internal reflection angle compared to conventional glass wafers, enabling a larger field of view (FOV) in AR devices, almost to the limit of human peripheral vision.

SCHOTT RealView glass wafers are available with tailored refractive index and excellent light guiding properties. As a result of engineering innovation, SCHOTT RealView is 10 times flatter, measured as Total Thickness Variation (TTV), than industry standard glass wafers.

“Augmented reality should still look like reality,” said Dr. Rüdiger Sprengard, Vice President and Head of Augmented Reality, Advanced Optics at SCHOTT. “To raise the bar and meet the requirements of this rapidly expanding market, manufacturers need superior optical wafers with qualities a full order of magnitude greater than what has previously appeared on the market – a challenge SCHOTT scientists and engineers have accepted in the spirit of pushing the limits of process technology and metrology.”

SCHOTT claims to have invested “massively” in the production infrastructure in order to serve the “strong growth” of the “emerging AR industry”.

SCHOTT’s production facilities in Germany have a long history of producing high-quality glass materials, with a portfolio of 120 optical glasses with refractive indexes up to 2.0. Wafer production and optical coating will take place in China in cooperation with Zhejiang Crystal-Optech.

The glass wafers will be presented to the public for the first time at the Display Week Conference in Los Angeles from 22 to 24 May.

Cover picture: Schott