Korean researchers develop switchable 3D display

South Korean researchers have developed a next-generation display that lets users switch seamlessly between two-dimensional and three-dimensional viewing on a smartphone without glasses.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said a team led by Noh Joon-suk at POSTECH, working with the Visual Technology Team at Samsung Electronics’s Samsung Research, created the system using a metalens, an advanced optical component. The study appeared in the April 23 issue of Nature.

Demand for 3D content has been rising across fields such as virtual reality and medical imaging, increasing interest in technologies that can shift between 2D and 3D on a single device.

The team addressed this by designing a metalens that changes how light bends depending on the applied voltage. Without voltage, the display shows a standard 2D image. When voltage is applied, it produces a 3D image with a viewing angle of up to 100 degrees.


최지원 jwchoi@donga.com