Data availability
Data supporting the findings of this study can be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.
References
-
Dodgson, N. A. Autostereoscopic 3D displays. Computer 38, 31–36 (2005).
-
Lee, B. Three-dimensional displays, past and present. Phys. Today 66, 36–41 (2013).
-
Willemsen, O. H., De Zwart, S. T., Hiddink, M. G. H. & Willemsen, O. 2-D/3-D switchable displays. J. Soc. Inf. Display 14, 715–722 (2006).
-
Lee, S., Mammen, A., Zhang, X., Krebbers, A. & Fattal, D. Locally switchable 2D and 3D displays. Inf. Display 39, 26–30 (2023).
-
Akeley, K., Watt, S. J., Girshick, A. R. & Banks, M. S. A stereo display prototype with multiple focal distances. ACM Trans. Graph. 23, 804–813 (2004).
-
Matsuda, N., Fix, A. & Lanman, D. Focal surface displays. ACM Trans. Graph. 36, 86 (2017).
-
Narain, R. et al. Optimal presentation of imagery with focus cues on multi-plane displays. ACM Trans. Graph. 34, 59 (2015).
-
An, J. et al. Slim-panel holographic video display. Nat. Commun. 11, 5568 (2020).
-
Yu, H., Lee, K., Park, J. & Park, Y. Ultrahigh-definition dynamic 3D holographic display by active control of volume speckle fields. Nat. Photon. 11, 186–192 (2017).
-
Hirayama, R., Martinez Plasencia, D., Masuda, N. & Subramanian, S. A volumetric display for visual, tactile and audio presentation using acoustic trapping. Nature 575, 320–323 (2019).
-
Smalley, D. E. et al. A photophoretic-trap volumetric display. Nature 553, 486–490 (2018).
-
Dorrah, A. H. et al. Light sheets for continuous-depth holography and three-dimensional volumetric displays. Nat. Photon. 17, 427–434 (2023).
-
Fattal, D. et al. A multi-directional backlight for a wide-angle, glasses-free three-dimensional display. Nature 495, 348–351 (2013).
-
Jang, C. et al. Retinal 3D: augmented reality near-eye display via pupil-tracked light field projection on retina. ACM Trans. Graph. 36, 190 (2017).
-
Lee, S., Jang, C., Moon, S., Cho, J. & Lee, B. Additive light field displays: realization of augmented reality with holographic optical elements. ACM Trans. Graph. 35, 60 (2016).
-
Lanman, D., Hirsch, M., Kim, Y. & Raskar, R. Content-adaptive parallax barriers: optimizing dual-layer 3D displays using low-rank light field factorization. ACM Trans. Graph. 29, 163 (2010).
-
Wang, Y. et al. Three-dimensional light-field display with enhanced horizontal viewing angle by introducing a new lenticular lens array. Opt. Commun. 477, 126327 (2020).
-
Wang, P. et al. A large depth of field frontal multi-projection three-dimensional display with uniform light field distribution. Opt. Commun. 354, 321–329 (2015).
-
Krijn, M. P. C. M., de Zwart, S. T., de Boer, D. K. G., Willemsen, O. H. & Sluijter, M. 2-D/3-D displays based on switchable lenticulars. J. Soc. Inf. Display 16, 847–855 (2008).
-
Chu, F., Wang, D., Liu, C., Li, L. & Wang, Q.-H. Multi-view 2D/3D switchable display with cylindrical liquid crystal lens array. Crystals 11, 715 (2021).
-
Tian, L.-L., Li, Y., Yin, Z., Li, L. & Chu, F. Fast response electrically controlled liquid crystal lens array for high resolution 2D/3D switchable display. Opt. Express 30, 37946–37956 (2022).
-
Lin, D., Fan, P., Hasman, E. & Brongersma, M. L. Dielectric gradient metasurface optical elements. Science 345, 298–302 (2014).
-
Yu, N. et al. Light propagation with phase discontinuities: generalized laws of reflection and refraction. Science 334, 333–337 (2011).
-
Khorasaninejad, M. et al. Metalenses at visible wavelengths: diffraction-limited focusing and subwavelength resolution imaging. Science 352, 1190–1194 (2016).
-
Kim, S., Kim, J., Kim, K., Jeong, M. & Rho, J. Anti-aliased metasurfaces beyond the Nyquist limit. Nat. Commun. 16, 411 (2025).
-
Zhou, Y., Zheng, H., Kravchenko, I. I. & Valentine, J. Flat optics for image differentiation. Nat. Photon. 14, 316–323 (2020).
-
Rubin, N. A. et al. Matrix Fourier optics enables a compact full-Stokes polarization camera. Science 365, eaax1839 (2019).
-
Zheng, R. et al. Active multiband varifocal metalenses based on orbital angular momentum division multiplexing. Nat. Commun. 13, 4292 (2022).
-
Chen, W. T. et al. A broadband achromatic metalens for focusing and imaging in the visible. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 220–226 (2018).
-
Wang, S. et al. A broadband achromatic metalens in the visible. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 227–232 (2018).
-
Gopakumar, M. et al. Full-colour 3D holographic augmented-reality displays with metasurface waveguides. Nature 629, 791–797 (2024).
-
Lin, R. J. et al. Achromatic metalens array for full-colour light-field imaging. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 227–231 (2019).
-
Shi, Z. & Capasso, F. Polarization-dependent metasurfaces for 2D/3D switchable displays. In Proc. of SPIE, Vol. 10676, 1067618 (2018).
-
Pancharatnam, S. Generalized theory of interference, and its applications. Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. Sect. A. 44, 247–262 (1956).
-
Berry, M. V. The adiabatic phase and Pancharatnam’s phase for polarized light. J. Mod. Opt. 34, 1401–1407 (1987).
-
Cohen, E. et al. Geometric phase from Aharonov–Bohm to Pancharatnam–Berry and beyond. Nat. Rev. Phys. 1, 437–449 (2019).
-
Kuhlmey, M. & Bartmann, R. Subpixel-area based simulation for autostereoscopic displays with lenticular arrays. In Proc. International Conference on 3D Imaging (IC3D) (eds Gotchev, A. & Smolic, A.) 1–5 (IEEE, 2015).
-
de la Barré, R. et al. A new design and algorithm for lenticular lenses display. In Proc. International Conference on 3D Imaging (IC3D) (eds Gotchev, A. & Smolic, A.) 1–7 (IEEE, 2016).
-
Liu, L. et al. 3D light-field display with an increased viewing angle and optimized viewpoint distribution based on a ladder compound lenticular lens unit. Opt. Express 29, 34035–34050 (2021).
-
Liu, B. et al. Time-multiplexed light field display with 120-degree wide viewing angle. Opt. Express 27, 35728–35739 (2019).
-
Zhao, Y. et al. Retinal-resolution varifocal VR. In Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Emerging Technologies (eds Brunvand, E. & Glencross, M.) article 15, 1–3 (Association for Computing Machinery, 2023).
-
Ee, H.-S. & Agarwal, R. Tunable metasurface and flat optical zoom lens on a stretchable substrate. Nano Lett. 16, 2818–2823 (2016).
-
Arbabi, E. et al. MEMS-tunable dielectric metasurface lens. Nat. Commun. 9, 812 (2018).
-
Colburn, S., Zhan, A. & Majumdar, A. Varifocal zoom imaging with large area focal length adjustable metalenses. Optica 5, 825–831 (2018).
-
Shalaginov, M. Y. et al. Reconfigurable all-dielectric metalens with diffraction-limited performance. Nat. Commun. 12, 1225 (2021).
-
Kim, J. et al. Scalable manufacturing of high-index atomic layer–polymer hybrid metasurfaces for metaphotonics in the visible. Nat. Mater. 22, 474–481 (2023).
-
Choi, M. et al. Roll-to-plate printable RGB achromatic metalens for wide-field-of-view holographic near-eye displays. Nat. Mater. 24, 535–543 (2025).
-
Kim, J. et al. A water-soluble label for food products prevents packaging waste and counterfeiting. Nat. Food 5, 293–300 (2024).
-
Kim, J. et al. Amorphous to crystalline transition in nanoimprinted sol–gel titanium oxide metasurfaces. Adv. Mater. 36, 2405378 (2024).
-
Oh, D. K., Kang, H., Kang, D., Kim, J. & Rho, J. Nanoprinting metasurfaces with engineered optical materials. Nat. Rev. Mater. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-025-00874-3 (2026).
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the POSCO-POSTECH-RIST Convergence Research Center programme funded by POSCO, an industry-academia strategic grant funded by Samsung Research, the Samsung Research Funding and Incubation Center for Future Technology grant (no. SRFC-IT1901-52) funded by Samsung Electronics, the Korea Planning and Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) grant (no. 1415179744/20019169, Alchemist project) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of the Korean government, and the National Research Foundation (NRF) grants (nos. RS-2025-02217649, RS-2024-00356928, RS-2024-00462912, RS-2024-00416272, RS-2024-00337012, RS-2024-00408286, RS-2022-NR067559) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of the Korean government. This research was also supported by a grant of Korean ARPA-H Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (no. RS-2025-25454431). J.K. acknowledges the NRF Sejong Science fellowship (RS-2026-25496744) funded by the MSIT of the Korean government.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature thanks Xiaoyue Ding, Cheng Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 1 Efficiency of the MLL for three wavelengths.
The efficiency of the MLL is calculated using RCWA for different incident angles and positions. The angles (({theta }_{u},{theta }_{v})=({cos }^{-1}left(frac{xi -u}{d}right),{cos }^{-1}left(frac{eta -v}{d}right))) and the coordinate value ({u}_{1}) are defined in Fig. 2a. As shown in the graph, the efficiency varies with the incident angle and is biased toward one direction as ({u}_{1}) increases. This occurs because the local period of the MLL decreases, and the diffraction angle increases as the ray intersects with the edge of the MLL.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Measured efficiency of the fabricated MLL.
a, Measurement setup for the efficiency of the MLL. Since the signal from the MLL diverges or converges depending on the input polarization state, direct measurement is challenging. Instead, we measure the intensity of the DC noise and acquire the signal intensity by subtracting it from the power of the incident light without the MLL. To create quasi-collimated light, only a few pixels are turned on, and the rays are collimated using a CCD lens. A LP and QWP modulate the incident light into the RCP state. Then, second QWP and LP block the signal after the light passes through the MLL. The efficiency of the MLL is measured for different incident angles. To minimize polarization aberrations, the two LPs and two QWPs are positioned perpendicular to the light’s propagation direction. The output DC component is measured using an illuminance meter (CA-210, Konica Minolta). b, Measured efficiency of the fabricated MLL. For normal incidence, the measured efficiencies are 26.6%, 46.4%, and 54.8% for 620 nm, 535 nm, and 460 nm, respectively.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Moon, S., Kim, J., Jo, Y. et al. Switchable 2D–3D display through a metasurface lenticular lens. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10318-9
-
Received:
-
Accepted:
-
Published:
-
Version of record:
-
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10318-9
