FT: How Microsoft Built the Hololens 2

FT: How Microsoft Built the Hololens 2

By Tim Bradshaw

To improve the field of view while also shrinking the HoloLens’ visor, Microsoft used something that might seem surprising in a world that has largely replaced spinning hard drives with static flash storage: mechanically oscillating mirrors. 

The HoloLens’ Mems is made up of a pair of spinning mirrors that it uses to spray lasers into your eyes, to form a hologram. To convince the eye that the image is real, the mirrors need to spin at very high speed.

 “At the end of the day, all we need to do is paint a rectangular shape at the back of your eye, on your retina,” says Mr Han, nonchalantly. “We can do that in a traditional way by shining light at or through a large label. But we can also draw that image on your eye, as long as we can steer the photons hitting your eye.”

...the company believes that its breakthrough has put it on a path to something that will be small and light enough for regular folks to wear, not just trainee aerospace engineers.

“As far as I know this is a completely new novel approach,” Mr Han says. “We have a tremendously powerful tool in our arsenal for the road map for this technology going forward.”