Holoptic, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF211-CSO1

Description

Growing demands for Augment Reality (AR) Head Up and Head and Helmet Mounted Displays, and Smart Glasses call for high quality fully see-through holographically produced image combiners (HPICs). The USAF demanding quality of these components in large part depends on the properties of the photopolymer used for a holographic master preparation, as well as for the hologram copies that allow low-cost mass manufacturing. As a leading manufacturer of the holographic optical elements (HOEs) for commercial and military use, Luminit, LLC is well positioned to attest to deficiencies of commercially available photopolymers like low sensitivity, significant shrinkage, that leads, among other things to complicated manufacturing, low yield and higher components cost. In addition, the main photopolymer supplier is a foreign entity (Covestro) that is reluctant to provide it for the US military use. To address this problem Luminit Government Services, LLC (LGS) (a Government business focused spinoff of Luminit) in collaboration with University of Massachusetts (UMass) Center for Industry Research on Polymers proposes to develop and fully validate a revolutionary improved photopolymer greatly enhancing AR displays’ quality and producibility. The close collaborative effort of the two-- photopolymer and holography developers is a key to achieve the material optimally tailored to the AR applications.