Achromatic Maxwellian augmented reality displays based on stacked off-axis Pancharatnam-Berry lenses

Maxwellian augmented reality (AR) displays offer inherent advantages of being free of vergence-accommodation conflict, high optical efficiency, and compact form factor. Nonetheless, existing implementations remain constrained by chromatic aberrations arising from the wavelength-dependent diffraction properties inherent in their optical components. To overcome this limitation, we propose an achromatic, full-color Maxwellian AR display system utilizing a triple-stacked configuration of off-axis cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) lenses. By precisely designing the grating periods and feature sizes within each color-specific CLC element, we achieve highly uniform diffraction angles (45.2° ± 0.1°) and focal lengths (3.75 cm) for the red, green, and blue color channels, respectively. This synchronization of deflection and focusing enables chromatic recombination at a shared focal plane, producing an achromatic Maxwellian display. This work demonstrates the efficacy of LC planar optics in mitigating chromatic dispersion for Maxwellian displays and advances the development of compact, cost-effective, and high-efficiency AR systems.