Eye‐safety analysis of phase‐only holographic projection systems

Abstract— Recently, laser‐safety analyses have been presented for scanned‐beam and LCOS imaging projectors. A third class of projection technology, based on the properties of phase‐only diffraction, is differentiated from scanned‐beam and LCOS counterparts in its ability to provide a significantly higher effective luminous flux for video style images. In this paper, this desirable property is recognized by the definition of the “video lumen” and a detailed design fora hypothetical holographic projector and corresponding laser safety analysis is presented. As in the case of conventional amplitude‐modulating LCOS projectors, a holographic projector is capable of delivering several hundred white lumens in Class 2; an appropriately specified holographic projector can also provide several tens of video lumens while maintaining a Class 1 classification.