Lumus is an augmented reality optics company that has been continuously developing its geometric (reflective) waveguide technology. Founded in 2000, apart from being the leading waveguide technology company for consumer AR, Lumus has over 17 years of experience developing products for the military, as well as collaborating on medical and industrial devices. The company holds 1,200 patents, including over 500 pending applications, and employs a team of 100 professionals, more than 70% of whom are scientists or engineers. TrendForce recently had the opportunity to interview Lumus’ Vice President of Marketing, David Goldman, and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Yochay Danziger. They discussed the company's current developments, provided valuable insights into the performance differences between geometric and diffractive waveguides, and shared their latest advancements in waveguide and light engine technologies.

David Goldman, VP of Marketing (left), and Dr. Yochay Danziger, CTO of Lumus (right)

Marketing Strategies
To date, Lumus has shipped hundreds of thousands of waveguides, a number of which are integrated into consumer, military, medical and industrial customer devices. Currently, Lumus has two manufacturing partners: SCHOTT, whose foundry is based in Malaysia, and Quanta in Taiwan. By working with primary ODM partners, Lumus can maintain a strong position within their manufacturing ecosystem, bringing their combined partner capacity to over 6 million units.

When discussing Lumus’ business model, David indicated that they adopt a two-pronged approach. First, they enter into non-recurring engineering (NRE) agreements with Tier 1 companies. Once the production file is transferred to the ODM working directly with the customer, Lumus typically assists the ODM with the ramp up. Lumus collects royalties on the back end once the product ships. Second, they license their technology to manufacturing partners for off-the-shelf products, which are sold to Tier 2 and Tier 3 companies, allowing Lumus to collect royalties on product sales. David also emphasized that Lumus protects its IP rights and freedom by entering into non-exclusive agreements with all their partners.

Geometric Waveguide’s Advantages
Lumus’ core technology is the geometric (reflective) waveguide. Compared to diffractive waveguides, David explained that due to its distinct waveguide structure, the geometric waveguide is more power-efficient (by higher light efficiency), provides superior color performance, and exhibits lower light leakage.

Yochay delved deeper into the technical differences between the two waveguide types. First, he highlighted the factors governing the FoV (Field of View) and panel compatibility. He explained that while next-generation panels like LEDoS and OLEDoS natively require a larger input aperture, the geometric waveguide's prism-coupling structure is particularly well-suited to efficiently accepting these wide-aperture input beams, creating a perfect win-win solution. In contrast, diffractive waveguides rely on gratings for in-coupling. Their effective aperture size is inherently restricted because when the in-coupling aperture is enlarged, the input beam covers a larger area of the grating, causing portions of the already-coupled light to interact with the grating again and be re-diffracted out of the waveguide, resulting in significant coupling efficiency loss. Furthermore, the FoV of diffractive waveguides is heavily constrained by dispersion, which causes different colors to propagate at different angles. Although some suggest using Silicon Carbide (SiC) to expand the waveguide's FoV, it remains a notoriously difficult material to process and is still far too expensive for mass adoption.

Second, he addressed the critical issues of thermal management and environmental durability. He noted that Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is essential for both waveguide types; however, the most widely adopted diffractive waveguide designs rely on surface relief gratings (SRG), which require an air gap to preserve the refractive index contrast necessary for grating diffraction efficiency. Consequently, this air-gap structure tends to trap heat between the encapsulation and the waveguide, which poses a safety risk for users. Another vulnerability is humidity; if moisture penetrates the air gap, optical performance degrades significantly. Conversely, since the reflective surfaces of geometric waveguides are housed internally, the outer surface can be encapsulated via direct clad bonding using a solid low-index medium. This allows them to dissipate heat rapidly and eliminates any susceptibility to humidity issues, thereby preventing thermal stress and degradation of optical performance.

Third, Lumus highlighted the issue of eye-glow (front projection). He noted that because diffractive waveguides rely on grating structures for out-coupling, which inherently diffract light into multiple orders simultaneously, a significant portion of light is inevitably projected outward to the front side while directing the image toward the user's eye. Furthermore, attempting to mitigate eye-glow in diffractive waveguides inevitably leads to a tough trade-off; adding corrective layers or modifying grating profiles severely disrupts the waveguide's sensitive color balance, leading to degraded color performance. In contrast, geometric waveguides utilize internal partial mirrors to reflect light directionally toward the eye, exhibiting minimal front projection. Moreover, by applying an anti-reflective coating, Lumus can reduce front projection to less than 1%.

Light Engine
As the most widely adopted full-color Micro LED light engine architecture, the X-cube integrates red, green, and blue (R/G/B) LEDoS panels. However, its complex manufacturing process and heavy reliance on alignment accuracy significantly constrain yield, hindering cost reduction. Seeking a breakthrough, Lumus keeps a close eye on light engine development. In collaboration with light engine manufacturers, Lumus showcased a novel light engine architecture featuring a single-plane dichroic cube design. This structure separates the quantum dot (QD) green and red channels—which are illuminated by a blue light source on one side—from a dedicated blue source on the other side. By implementing this architecture, Lumus not only successfully resolves the blue light leakage issues inherent in QD LEDoS light engines but also increases the yield rate of assembly and reduces costs. Additionally, this architecture incorporates Lumus’ specialty in coating design so that the single-layer-dichroic cube will eventually support 70° FoV compared to traditional X-cube light engines, which typically only offer 30° to 50° FoV. Lumus intends to incorporate this architecture with OLEDs, eliminating their blue pixel bottleneck.

The Next Stage
With more than 25 years of dedication to geometric waveguide technology, Lumus has successfully entered the supply chain for Meta Ray-Ban Displays, backed by the stability and exceptional performance of its products. However, the company is not stopping there. While continuing to build on its current 30° FoV products, Lumus is actively pursuing next-generation thinner, lighter waveguide solutions with a high FoV of 50° to 70°—a territory that remains extremely difficult for diffractive waveguides to enter.

Z-Lens features 50° FoV

Author: Estelle / TrendForce

TrendForce 2025 Near-Eye Display Market Trend and Technology Analysis
Publication Date : 29 August 2025
Language : Traditional Chinese / English
Format : PDF
Page Number: 168