It has been a challenge to design an optical see-through head-mounted display (OST-HMD) that has a wide field of view (FOV) and low f-number (f/#) while maintaining a compact, lightweight, and non intrusive form factor. In this paper, we present an OST-HMD design using a wedge-shaped freeform prism cemented with a freeform lens. The prism, consisting of three freeform surfaces (FFSs), serves as the near-eye viewing optics that magnifies the image displayed through a microdisplay, and the freeform lens is an auxiliary element attached to the prism in order to maintain a nondistorted see-through view of a real-world scene. Both the freeform prism and the lens utilize plastic materials to achieve light weight. The overall dimension of the optical system per eye is no larger than $25\mathrm{mm}$ by $22\mathrm{mm}$ by $12\mathrm{mm}$ , and the weight is 8\text{\hspace{0.17em} g} . Based on a 0.61 in. microdisplay, our system demonstrates a diagonal FOV of $53.5°$ and an f/# of 1.875, with an $8\mathrm{mm}$ exit pupil diameter and an $18.25\mathrm{mm}$ eye relief.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

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