The World’s First Consumer-Grade Volume Holographic Waveguide Mass Producer: Decoding the Optical Core of the NIMO AR Glasses
As the world’s first AI glasses equipped with consumer-grade volume holographic 2D grating waveguides, NIMO’s breakthrough is truly disruptive: the form factor is extremely slim, indistinguishable from ordinary eyewear. The lenses are crystal clear, the gratings are nearly invisible, and common issues like rainbow artifacts and light leakage are so well suppressed that they are barely noticeable.
The exceptional optical performance of NIMO is made possible by its core component — the Nikahood "Starlight" waveguide lens. Weighing just 3.1±0.2g, with a thickness of 0.6±0.03mm, over 95% transmittance, a leakage ratio below 1:140, and an ultra-high optical efficiency of 1400 nits/lm, the "Starlight" waveguide takes the optical experience of AI glasses to an entirely new level.
In fact, this is not the first time Nikahood has captured the public’s attention with outstanding AI eyewear products. Last September, the Xingyi Smart AI Glasses — priced at just 999 RMB and a hot topic of industry discussion — also featured an optical solution from Nikahood.
With the industry still struggling with multiple technical bottlenecks — including weight, lens clarity, visible gratings, light leakage, and rainbow artifacts — NIMO’s dual breakthrough in both appearance and performance has sparked widespread curiosity: How exactly was this achieved?
The answer lies in Nikahood’ deep R&D and mass-production capabilities in volume holographic waveguide technology. To shed light on this, Du Youcheng, founder of Nikahood, breaks down the optical technology behind NIMO’s high performance, as well as the company’s pioneering explorations in the field of 2D grating volume holography.
1. Making AR glasses lightweight and thin ultimately comes down to trade-offs in materials and design
For AR glasses to become part of everyday life, the first step is to
shed the bulky feel. Nikahood has reduced waveguide weight to approximately 3.1g — far below the industry average of 4–8g. This is not achieved through a single technology, but through systematic optimization of material selection and optical design.
"Typically, glass substrates and covers use 0.4mm/0.5mm + 0.2mm, but the glass substrates Nikahood now selects are thinner and lighter than that. The key is that our substrates can be made even thinner." According to Du Youcheng, "The market often uses a refractive index of 1.8; Nikahood mostly uses 1.6. The 1.6 material has a lower density, offering a clear advantage in weight, but it imposes greater demands on optical design."
Addressing the rainbow artifact and light leakage issues — the most directly perceptible problems for users — Nikahood has also tackled them primarily through optical design. "Our current solution to rainbow artifacts relies on a relatively complex optical design, which has increased the difficulty of the optical design. With our current design, there is no rainbow artifact within a 55° field of view of the human eye. It only appears beyond 55°, meaning at very oblique angles."
Du Youcheng explained that Nikahood has set clear requirements in its designs: "The human eye is most sensitive to the center and sides, especially rainbow artifacts at small oblique angles. So we have specified a design requirement: there must be no rainbow artifacts within the central field of view and within a 30° range to the sides."
In addition to solving the troublesome rainbow artifact, the Nikahood team has managed to control the light leakage ratio to less than 1:140, essentially eliminating light leakage.
Light leakage is given significant attention because it greatly affects the discreet appearance of AR glasses — when the display function is in use, the lenses visibly glow green. Numerous online videos showing light leakage in AR glasses have already deterred a large number of potential users. Therefore, Nikahood strict control over light leakage is of great importance for the adoption of AR glasses to the consumer market.
The breakthrough in controlling the light leakage ratio to 1:140 comes from two main aspects: "First, it is the new Bragg grating technology, which inherently has specific directional selectivity — the grating itself produces very little diffraction outward. Second, on this basis, we further suppress the leakage ratio through grating design, even if some outward leakage occurs."
At the same time, Du Youcheng candidly noted: "Of course, achieving absolutely no light leakage is impossible from an optical principles standpoint. You cannot get 100 points, but we can improve the leakage rate from a 60-point level to a 99-point level."
2. How to Achieve Invisible Gratings and Over 95% Lens Transmittance?
To resemble ordinary lenses, being slim and light is not enough — the gratings must also be visually unobtrusive, and lens clarity must match that of conventional lenses. One of the most common complaints from users about existing AI glasses with displays on the market is that the gratings are not invisible, creating an unnatural look. Additionally, the grating area often appears yellowish, lacks sufficient clarity, and causes visual fatigue.
The lens performance of the NIMO, however, is completely different — it is almost indistinguishable from ordinary lenses. The reasons behind this lie not only in the inherent advantages of volume holographic grating technology and the assistance of anti-reflection coatings, but more critically, in Nikahood’ technological breakthroughs in next-generation grating exposure processes and the core parameters of volume holographic materials.
Du Youcheng explains: "First, the new Bragg grating itself has high transmittance. This type of grating has a specific color-selective effect on light, so its overall transmittance is very high. Under normal conditions, the transmittance we achieve is already at the level of 90% to 92%."
"Second, the market's demand for higher transmittance in wearable devices has increased, and everyone needs to apply anti-reflection coatings. So our products are also coated with anti-reflection coatings. In the non-grating area, we can achieve 98% transmittance; in the grating area, thanks to its inherently high transmittance combined with the coating, we can achieve over 95% transmittance. This means the transmittance of both the grating and non-grating areas has been improved simultaneously."
Beyond the inherent advantages of volume holographic grating technology and the role of anti-reflection coatings, Nikahood has also adopted new grating exposure techniques and advanced material technologies to enhance the core parameters governing the diffraction efficiency of volume holographic materials.
"We have implemented a technology called graded grating exposure. During the exposure process, we apply a graded exposure profile and divide the grating into nearly 20 zones. As a result, the gradation is exceptionally well controlled, and the concealment of the grating becomes remarkably good."
Another key factor: "We selected an optical engine with a specification of 0.03CC, which does not have very high brightness output. Therefore, Nikahood needed to achieve very high optical efficiency in the waveguide. We have now reached an overall optical efficiency of 1400 nits/lm, which is a particularly core parameter. The underlying reason is that we have improved the refractive index modulation — the most critical optical parameter for volume holographic materials. So at the fundamental level, it's still our material technology that makes the difference."
Whether it is the perceptual optimization in terms of slimness, clarity, and grating invisibility, or the effective control of display issues such as rainbow artifacts and light leakage, all of this demonstrates Nikahood continuous iteration and system integration capabilities along its technological path.
3. The World’s First Consumer-Grade Mass Production and Integration of 2D Grating Volume Holography: A Technological Milestone from Zero to One
The high performance of NIMO is essentially a testament to Nikahood pioneering breakthrough in 2D grating volume holography. Nikahood is not only the world's first manufacturer to achieve scalable mass production of consumer-grade 2D grating volume holographic waveguides, but has also, through dual innovations in process and materials, made this technology the core enabler of advancements in both the aesthetics and performance of AR glasses.
Compared to traditional 1D gratings, the core advantages of 2D gratings lie in layout flexibility and visual aesthetics. Du Youcheng explains that the 2D grating integrates the out-coupling grating and the turning grating into a single area, eliminating the need for a separate turning grating. "This not only makes the lens look cleaner and achieves higher transmittance, but more importantly, within the limited lens space, the arrangement of the grating out-coupling area becomes much more flexible. It can be freely designed in all directions — up, down, left, and right — and it is also easier to adjust the positioning to match the human eye."
Nikahood has truly brought this technology to consumer-grade mass production.
Behind this mass production lies groundbreaking innovation in both manufacturing processes and material R&D by Nikahood: the development of the "Pinwheel Optical Path." Traditional 1D gratings require only two-beam exposure, whereas the "Pinwheel Optical Path" developed by Nikahood for 2D gratings uses a six-beam exposure technique, solving the processing challenges of 2D gratings in one go. "The stability and angular control precision required for the Pinwheel Optical Path are extremely high, and Nikahood has achieved key breakthroughs in this area."
Process innovation inevitably demands matching material performance. Du Youcheng notes, "The Pinwheel Optical Path imposes entirely new requirements on the photosensitivity and photoreactive characteristics of the material. The industry has been developing materials for two-beam exposure, so we needed to redevelop our material system to meet the demands of six-beam exposure." Nikahood core competitive advantage lies precisely in its integrated system of material development, supply chain development, and exposure processing. It is the mutual matching and tuning of these three elements that has made the mass production of 2D grating volume holography possible.
Slimness, transparency — these are improvements in user experience. But the consumer-grade mass production of 2D grating volume holography represents a foundational breakthrough for the industry and a critical inflection point for the AR glasses market. In achieving mass production and integration of this pioneering technology, Nikahood currently stands alone globally.
4. Sample Delivery in 2 Weeks, Production Ramp-Up in 3 Weeks — Rapid Customer Response
Ultimately, technological breakthroughs must translate into mass production. Nikahood has not only achieved mass production of its technology but has also become a core partner for AR OEMs through its production capacity and standardized services — a key enabler for the rapid launch and high performance of the BITONIC NIMO.
In terms of production capacity, Nikahood is already seeing a surge in orders. To meet market demand, the company’s million-unit-per-year production line in Tianjin will officially go into operation this June. This large-scale mass production will further reduce costs and accelerate the consumer adoption of AR glasses.
Facing a growing influx of orders, Nikahood has long been fully prepared. With its customized development capabilities and standardized processes, the company can rapidly respond to customer needs, efficiently deliver samples, and ramp up production lines. In addition, Nikahood provides full-process technical support — from active alignment (AA) and structural integration to complete device manufacturing — helping customers accelerate their own mass production with professional and efficient service. In doing so, Nikahood is becoming a mass-production accelerator in the AR optics field.
On the customer service front, through early collaboration with partners, Nikahood has standardized its customized development and production process integration, achieving industry-leading rapid response: "When customers work with us, we can deliver samples in two weeks and ramp up production lines in three weeks — extremely high efficiency." Behind this efficiency is Nikahood development and application of mask exposure technology, which enables fast customized development.
More importantly, Nikahood also provides full-process production line support to its customers. Du Youcheng notes that AA alignment and structural component integration are common pain points in AR glasses manufacturing, with frequent tolerance issues. "Our engineers go directly to the customer's production line to assist with AA alignment, structural integration, tolerance analysis, and waveguide tuning — full-process support from the optical core to final device assembly."
It is precisely this professional support system that has enabled Nikahood to serve two customers — Xingyi Smart and BITONIC — within a single year, helping them quickly bring their products to mass production and to market. This also fully demonstrates Nikahood' ability to efficiently serve more customers at scale.
From pioneering mass production of 2D grating volume holography, to delivering the ultimate experience of slimness, no rainbow artifacts, and high transmittance, to providing the dual guarantee of million-unit capacity and standardized services — Nikahood has built the core optical foundation for bringing AR glasses to consumers.
And with the commissioning of its million-unit production line in Tianjin and the growing number of partnerships with device OEMs, Nikahood is driving volume holographic waveguide technology to become the mainstream choice for AR glasses — ushering in an era where AR glasses truly become as wearable as ordinary eyewear, every day.