Reality Check

JUSTINE MURPHY, SENIOR EDITOR, justine.murphy@photonics.com

Germany is known as “the land of ideas” in the photonics industry. France has become a top contender in optics and photonics innovation. And now, Australia, China, Japan and others in the Asia-Pacific region are swiftly emerging as major players in photonics technology, research and development.

In a May 2016 report, global market research firm MarketsandMarkets notes that this region is the fastest-growing in several markets, including virtual and augmented reality, and wearable, head-mounted and flexible displays. Transparency Market Research, another global research company, has similar expectations, predicting Asia-Pacific will grow at a nearly 50 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2022.

HTC Vive virtual reality system. Courtesy of HTC.

This market augmentation is being attributed to skyrocketing consumer demand for these and other novel optics- and photonics-related technologies.

Top tech trends

Virtual reality — computer-generated simulation of a 3D image or environment that users can interact with in a seemingly real or physical way using special electronic equipment — is among the sectors seeing a global push, as such technology continues to emerge and evolve. It offers a totally immersive experience for users in gaming and entertainment, and in addition to interaction with other gamers, may someday allow interaction with online shops and other remote users.

The new HTC Vive virtual reality system is equipped with gaming and other such apps, including this Job Simulator. Courtesy of HTC.

HTC Corp., headquartered in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, is among the front-runners in this market with its Vive virtual reality system. The system includes a headset with front-facing camera that “blends real-world elements into the virtual world.” The device offers a 110° field of view, and its 32 sensors provide 360°

motion tracking. According to HTC, there is a 2160 × 1200 combined resolution with a 90-Hz refresh rate for smooth, natural navigation. Two motion-tracked handheld controllers, both of which feature 24 sensors and multifunction trackpads for “effortless precision,” and a set of speakers complete the Vive system.

Vive is a fully immersive virtual reality system that can be used for game play and accessing apps, and enables real-world views without having to take off the headset. It was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this year.

PlayStation VR from Sony — originally named Project Morpheus — is another virtual reality system. It was developed for online gaming, and offers seamless visuals via an OLED display that runs at up to 120 fps. These systems also feature 3D audio, rounding out the complete experience of being inside that virtual world.

A number of other virtual reality systems are emerging, including Rift. This system features a fully immersive head-mounted display, along with sensitive tracked controllers. Developed by Oculus VR LLC, a California-based virtual reality technology company, the system lets users play games or watch movies.

Augmented reality, which differs from virtual reality in that it overlays computer-generated information onto what the user is already seeing, is advancing, too, finding applications including 3D presentation of data, outdoor actions, or in conjunction with wearable display systems.

A laser scanning projection system by MicroVision Inc. enables augmented reality in products including head-up and retinal scanning displays. Such technology is growing globally as consumer costs, as well as those associated with development and manufacturing, are decreasing, and additional practical uses are being discovered.

Smartphone apps are getting in on the action, too. Circus Company of Seoul, South Korea, has introduced the circusAR app that recognizes objects such as images and shapes, using them in various ways including for education, entertainment, travel, gaming and art. ModiFace Inc. — a company that specializes in skin analysis and facial visualization, and has recently expanded into Asia — is another to offer augmented reality technology via smartphone app. Its IPSA Makeup Simulator allows users to virtually try different IPSA cosmetic products on their personal photos.

Innovative progress

The Consumer Technology Association’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year saw the unveiling of Royole-X Smart Mobile Theater, an immersive virtual reality system. Developed by Royole Corp. (via its Shenzhen, China, facility), a company that specializes in display technologies and related electronic products, this virtual mobile theater system touts the highest resolution display in the world, and allows users to stream movies and TV shows through nearly every streaming program, including Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. The system also features a portable, foldable, noise-blocking headset, and can be used with gaming platforms such as PlayStation, Xbox and Wii.

Beyond virtual reality, advances in display technologies originating in the region, particularly flexible displays, are quickly making their way toward the mainstream.

CES 2016 introduced numerous innovations in this technology, including the rollable OLED display by Seoul, South Korea-based LG Display Co. Ltd. It is the world’s first 30R 18-in. display that can be rolled up like a newspaper, according to the company. This new technology features an HD resolution of 1200 × 810 with almost a million megapixels. It can be rolled up to 3 cm without affecting the function of the display.

Flexible displays are finding applications in solar and photovoltaic technologies, too. Recently, a team from the University of New South Wales in Australia developed a thin-film technology called CZTS (copper-zinc-tin-sulfur) that has been applied to photovoltaics to achieve 7.6 percent efficiency in a 1-cm² solar cell. This achievement marks a milestone for thin-film photovoltaic technology — which is being explored for zero-energy buildings, among other applications — on its path toward commercially competitive 20 percent efficiency.

Flexible organic thin-film transistors enable printing of test structures on paper and could be used to create flexible, wearable displays. Courtesy of Takeo Minari/National Institute for Materials Science.

According to the researchers, thin-film solar cell technologies are attractive because they are physically flexible, increasing the number of potential applications, such as curved surfaces, roofing membranes, or transparent and translucent structures like windows and skylights. The CZTS cells tout a higher bandgap, and “can be deposited directly onto materials as thin layers that are 50 times thinner than a human hair, so there’s no need to manufacture silicon ‘wafer’ cells and interconnect them separately,” said UNSW professor Martin Green, director of the Australian National Energy Agency-supported Center for Advanced Photovoltaics. “They also respond better than silicon to blue wavelengths of light, and can be stacked as a thin film on top of silicon cells to ultimately improve the overall performance.”

The performance of wearable and head-mounted display technology continues to advance, as demonstrated by MicroVision. The Redmond, Wash.-based projection display maker, which has collaborated with Taiwan’s Asia Optical Co. Inc. on such display work in the past, has a laser beam scanning technology that can be incorporated into head-up and retinal-scanning displays, as well as augmented reality products.

“We’ve been ready for a long time,” said Bharath Rajagopalan, general manager for business development and marketing at MicroVision.

Originally developed for the military and defense industry, MicroVision’s lightweight head-worn displays deliver images that appear to the user as though on a see-through computer screen. This enables, for instance, a technician to view instructions on jet engine repair while performing the task.

Forward thinking

Applications in the defense industry could also benefit from recent breakthroughs in night vision (IR) technology. Researchers from the University of Sydney, in collaboration with the Australia National University and the University of Technology Sydney, have demonstrated a dramatic increase in the absorption efficiency of light in a layer of semiconductor that is only a few hundred atoms thick — to almost 99 percent light absorption from the current inefficient 7.7 percent.

“Conventional absorbers add bulk and cost to the IR detector, as well as the need for continuous power to keep the temperature down,” said University of Sydney professor Martijn de Sterke. “The ultrathin absorbers can reduce these drawbacks.”

In their work, the researchers found that ultrathin gratings composed of common materials could increase the absorption efficiency of light to nearly 99 percent when thin grooves were etched into the film, directing the light sideways. The semiconductor materials are compatible with optoelectronic applications such as photodetectors and optical modulators, according to the researchers, and could make IR technology less expensive and more accessible.

“There are many applications that could greatly benefit from perfectly absorbing ultrathin films, ranging from defense and autonomous farming robots to medical tools and consumer electronics,” said researcher Björn Sturmberg.

When light falls on a very thin, uniform layer, almost all of it is reflected (right-hand arrows). By etching thin grooves in the film, light is directed sideways and almost all of it is absorbed (left-hand arrow), even though the amount of material is very small. Insets show electron micrographs of the structuring. The absorbing layer is only 0.041-µm thick. Courtesy of Thomas P. White/Australian National University.

The costs of these and other such devices and systems are decreasing, making them ultimately more viable for the consumer market.

UNSW’s work with thin-film, flexible solar cells has a bright future in the consumer realm, as well. While the CZTS cells are trailing other thin-film cells — CdTe (cadmium-telluride) and CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) — in efficiency and size, professor Xiaojing Hao told Photonics Media that improvements are being made. In fact, in late May, her team announced additional advancement.

“We just achieved 9.24 percent efficient pure sulfide CZTS solar cells on a smaller area cell — 0.224 cm² — which is a noncertified cell result and comparable with the current world record in the similar small area cell — 9.1 percent,” Hao said. She added that the UNSW team anticipates developing beyond 10 percent efficient pure sulfide CZTS cells very soon.

This solar cell research, virtual reality systems, and many other technologies are skyrocketing companies in the Asia-Pacific to the top of the photonics pack. By 2022, analysts expect the market to reach billions of dollars, and this expansive region could ultimately hold the largest share.

Asia-Pacific Market: By the Numbers

The Asia-Pacific region is exhibiting the fastest growth in several photonics-related technology markets, thanks to increasing demand from various consumer segments. And this growth will only continue, according to market research.

The unveiling of new products — specifically virtual and augmented reality systems, flexible and wearable displays, and biomedical optics devices (among others) — is pushing this market growth in the Asia-Pacific region, amid formidable development worldwide.

The global market for augmented reality — a technology that superimposes computer-generated images on a user’s view of the real world, in turn providing a composite view, with sensors, displays, cameras and software — is expected to grow to about $117 billion by 2022, according to a May 2016 report by market research firm MarketsandMarkets. This amounts to a nearly 76 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2016 and 2022. The related market for virtual reality — computer-generated simulation of a 3D image or environment that users can interact with in a seemingly real or physical way using special electronic equipment — should see considerable progress, as well. MarketsandMarkets, in the same report, anticipates that the virtual reality realm will reach almost $34 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of nearly 58 percent.

Overall, Asia-Pacific should experience “high growth during the forecast period [2016-2022] and hold the largest market share,” according to the recent MarketsandMarkets report. This growth can be attributed to the expanding consumer market for augmented and virtual reality systems throughout countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. At this point, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., headquartered in South Korea, is among several “major players” in these markets. Others include Infinity Augmented Reality Inc. and Oculus VR Inc., both based in the U.S.

The increasing popularity and advancement of head-mounted display systems is another area in which the Asia-Pacific market is intensifying. Transparency Market Research, a global market research company, expects the global market for this particular technology to reach $20.5 billion by 2022. And while the U.S. is expected to hold the largest part of the head-mounted display market, Asia-Pacific is poised to exhibit the fastest growth, climbing by almost 50 percent annually between 2014 and 2022.

This region is expected to experience significant growth in the optical imaging market, too. This market, according to research firm Allied Market Research, should see a CAGR of about 12 percent through 2020, from about $915 million in 2012. This market is also currently dominated by U.S. companies, although Asia-Pacific is likely to experience significant growth, as incidences of cancer and other diseases rise.

And as other consumer needs develop alongside technological advances, Asia-Pacific’s anticipated significant growth will make the region a major player worldwide in both the market and R&D.