Toray Creates PICASUS VT, The World's First Film Able To Transmit Vertically Incident Light And Reflect Obliquely Incident Light

Toray’s Progress In Nano-Lamination Technology Enables New Film To Control Light Direction

Toray Industries, Inc., announced today that it has created PICASUS VT, the world’s first film incorporating an optical function to allow light to pass through the front like glass and reflect obliquely incident light like a mirror. This revolutionary material opens new doors to applications in such areas as augmented and mixed reality for Head-Mounted Display (HMD) and Head-Up Display (HUD), and privacy filter and display films. The company is pushing ahead with research and development with this new film with a view to commercialization during the next three years.

Conventional optical materials include transparent glass and plastic that transmit both vertically incident light and obliquely incident light, as well as materials that perform like metal films in reflecting light from those directions. To date, no optical materials have been able to control the directivity of light, notably by transmitting vertically incident light while maintaining high reflectance in reflecting light from oblique directions.

PICASUS VT employs Toray’s proprietary nano-lamination technology and provides high-precision control of the resin refractive index based on a new optical design. This thereby delivers completely new functionality by offering frontal light transparency while reflecting oblique light. Predecessor PICASUS nano-laminated film reflects light of a specific wavelength with several hundred to 1,000 nanometer-thick layers. PICASUS VT additionally controls the direction of light reflection and transmission.

Used in HMD and HUD for Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), PICASUS VT could maintain the visibility of scenery as with transparent glass and plastic while displaying projection information more clearly than with regular transparent glass and plastic.

Employed in privacy filter films for PCs and smartphones and in optical components for advanced displays, PICASUS VT would help enhance display functions, notably by improving transparency and multi-angle showing to concentrate light and safeguard information from wandering eyes.

Toray will continue leveraging its core technologies of synthetic organic and polymer chemistry, biotechnology, and nanotechnology to research and develop advanced materials that transform societies in keeping with its commitment to innovating ideas, technologies, and products that deliver new value.