# Neural 'Etendue Expander for Ultra-Wide-Angle High-Fidelity Holographic Display

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.08123 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08123/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Sep 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [End-to-End Hybrid Refractive-Diffractive Lens Design with Differentiable Ray-Wave Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00834/) (2024)
- [Stochastic Light Field Holography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06277/) (2023)
- [HoloChrome: Polychromatic Illumination for Speckle Reduction in Holographic Near-Eye Displays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24144/) (2024)
- [End-to-end differentiable design of geometric waveguide displays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04370/) (2026)
- [Neural 360^circ Structured Light with Learned Metasurfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13361/) (2023)
- [P-Hologen: An End-to-End Generative Framework for Phase-Only Holograms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01330/) (2024)
- [Large-Area Fabrication-Aware Computational Diffractive Optics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22313/) (2025)
- [Eyepiece-free pupil-optimized holographic near-eye displays](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22420/) (2025)
- [Super-resolution image projection over an extended depth of field using a diffractive decoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.03938/) (2025)
- [JPEG-Inspired Cloud-Edge Holography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12367/) (2025)
- [Snapshot 3D image projection using a diffractive decoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20464/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Holographic displays can generate light fields by dynamically modulating the wavefront of a coherent beam of light using a spatial light modulator, promising rich virtual and augmented reality applications. However, the limited spatial resolution of existing dynamic spatial light modulators imposes a tight bound on the diffraction angle. As a result, modern holographic displays possess low 'etendue, which is the product of the display area and the maximum solid angle of diffracted light. The low 'etendue forces a sacrifice of either the field-of-view (FOV) or the display size. In this work, we lift this limitation by presenting neural 'etendue expanders. This new breed of optical elements, which is learned from a natural image dataset, enables higher diffraction angles for ultra-wide FOV while maintaining both a compact form factor and the fidelity of displayed contents to human viewers. With neural 'etendue expanders, we experimentally achieve 64× 'etendue expansion of natural images in full color, expanding the FOV by an order of magnitude horizontally and vertically, with high-fidelity reconstruction quality (measured in PSNR) over 29 dB on retinal-resolution images.