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January 18, 2023

Developing a Platform for Creating Waveguide Combiners for AR Headsets and Meta Surface-based Optics

Dr. Robert Visser
, Appointed Vice President Engineering, Office of the CTO, Applied Materials, Inc.

Presentation Abstract

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) will become the new platforms for communicating learning and computing. Waveguide combiners are essential for transporting, expanding, and faithfully rendering the image generated by the display onto the glasses. Using more than 50 years of experience in creating and structuring thin films for semiconductor technology, we are now developing waveguide combiners on glass. Metasurface-based optics will revolutionize the world of optics, creating new opportunities for creating new devices which could not easily be created in classical optics and with a much thinner form factor. In this talk, we will describe the new materials and the techniques to create these nanostructured optical devices.

Dr. Robert Visser, 
Appointed Vice President Engineering, Office of the CTO, Applied Materials, Inc.

Robert Visser is Appointed Vice President of Engineering in the Office of the CTO at Applied Materials, Inc. He is responsible for creating business opportunities in new and adjacent markets related to advanced displays, optical components for augmented reality, ‘flat optics’ (metasurface based optics) and advanced packaging solutions enabling new packaging strategies for heterogenous integration. He also advises Applied’s chemistry group in India at IIT Mumbai and is looking at the role of new materials in quantum technology to explore new growth opportunities for Applied Materials in quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum sensing.

Dr. Visser’s work in the display industry spans more than three decades. During that time, he helped develop technology that commercialized flat panel display manufacturing and uncovered breakthroughs that will lead to a new generation of flexible and bendable displays. Virtually every OLED display made today uses technology elements that he helped pioneer during his career.

In 2020 he was recognized by the Society of Information Display (SID) with the prestigious Fellows Award for his distinguished and valued “contributions to the development and commercialization of OLED technology, and specifically to thin film encapsulation solutions.” He holds a master’s degree in theoretical organic chemistry and physics, and a Ph.D. in physical and organic chemistry, both from Leiden University, Netherlands. He has numer