HEAD WEARABLE DISPLAY USING POWERLESS OPTICAL COMBINER

An optical apparatus includes a lightguide and an optical combiner. The lightguide receives display light having an initial cross-section size and guides the display light down the lightguide. The lightguide includes internal optical elements that redirect the display light out of the lightguide with an expanded cross-section size that is larger than the initial cross-section size. The optical combiner combines the display light having the expanded cross-section with ambient scene light. The optical combiner includes an ambient scene side, an eye-ward side, and one or more reflective optical elements that pass at least a portion of the ambient scene light incident along an eye-ward direction on the ambient scene side through to the eye-ward side and redirect the display light having the expanded cross-section and incident on the eye-ward side to the eye-ward direction. The one or more reflective optical elements are substantially without lensing power.