US Patent 11002970 Multi-focal catadioptric head mounted display with LC switch

A system includes an electronic display for emitting light toward an eye-ward side of the system. A beam splitter receives emitted light from the display. The beam splitter includes a polarization beam splitting (PBS) film and a mirror coating to generate two orthogonal polarization states with different optical paths thereby creating a first focal plane and a second focal plane at the eye-ward side of the system. At least one liquid crystal switch is positioned to receive light from the display in a light path between the display and the eye-ward side of the system.