Three-dimensional (3D) electronic display

1. A three-dimensional (3D) electronic display comprising:

a plate light guide configured to guide a light beam at a non-zero propagation angle;

an array of multibeam diffraction gratings arranged in a plurality of offset rows, a multibeam diffraction grating of the array being configured to diffractively couple out a portion of the guided light beam as a plurality of coupled-out light beams having different principal angular directions corresponding to different views of the 3D electronic display, a center-to-center spacing between alternating offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array being offset by a one half, one third, or one quarter pitch of the multibeam diffraction gratings in the offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array; and

a light valve array configured to modulate the plurality of coupled-out light beams corresponding to the different views of the 3D electronic display, the modulated light beams representing pixels of the 3D electronic display.

2. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , wherein the multibeam diffraction grating comprises a linearly chirped diffraction grating.

3. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , wherein the multibeam diffraction grating is at a surface of the plate light guide, the multibeam diffraction grating having a substantially rectangular shape with diffractive features comprising one or both of curved grooves in the plate light guide surface and curved ridges on the plate light guide surface.

4. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , wherein a first row of the multibeam diffraction grating array is offset in a row direction relative to a second row of the multibeam diffraction grating array adjacent to the first row, the offset being about one half of a pitch of the multibeam diffraction gratings in the first row of the multibeam diffraction grating array.

5. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , wherein a subset of the light valves of the light valve array is configured to modulate the plurality of coupled-out light beams from a selected multibeam diffraction grating of the multibeam diffraction grating array, the light valve subset representing a super-pixel of the 3D electronic display, each light valve of the super-pixel being configured to modulate a different coupled-out light beam of the selected multibeam diffraction grating.

6. The 3D electronic display of claim 5 , wherein the super-pixel comprises a rectangular arrangement of the light valves of the subset, the rectangular arrangement having about half as many light valves in a direction substantially orthogonal to a row direction of the plurality of offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array than in a the row direction.

7. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of light sources of different colors both laterally displaced from one another in a row direction of the offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array and coupled to the plate light guide, each light source being configured to produce a light beam of a specific color different from the colors produced by other light sources of the light source plurality, wherein the plate light guide is configured to guide the different color light beams at respective non-zero propagation angles determined by the lateral displacement of the different color light sources, wherein the respective non-zero propagation angles of the different color guided light beams is configured to provide coupled-out light beams of each of the different colors in each of the different views of the 3D electronic display.

8. The 3D electronic display of claim 7 , wherein the light valves of the light valve array comprise liquid crystal light valves, a first liquid crystal light valve having a color filter that differs in color from a color filter of a second liquid crystal light valve of the light valve array.

9. A method of 3D electronic display operation, the method comprising:

guiding light in a plate light guide as a light beam at a non-zero propagation angle;

diffractively coupling out a portion of the guided light beam using an array of multibeam diffraction gratings arranged in offset rows on the plate light guide, a center-to-center spacing between alternating offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array being offset by a one half, one third, or one quarter pitch of the multibeam diffraction gratings in the offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array, wherein diffractively coupling out the guided light beam portion comprises producing a plurality of coupled-out light beams that are directed away from the plate light guide in a plurality of different principal angular directions corresponding to different views of the 3D electronic display; and

modulating the plurality of coupled-out light beams using a plurality of light valves, the modulated light beams representing pixels of the 3D electronic display.

10. The method of 3D electronic display operation of claim 9 , wherein a first row of the multibeam diffraction gratings of the array is offset in a row direction relative to a second row adjacent to the first row, the offset being about one half of a pitch of the multibeam diffraction gratings in the offset rows.

11. The method of 3D electronic display operation of claim 9 , wherein modulating the plurality of coupled-out light beams comprises modulating differently directed light beams coupled out by a selected multibeam diffraction grating of the array using a subset of the light valves of the light valve plurality, the differently directed light beams modulated by the light valve subset representing a super-pixel of the 3D electronic display, each light valve of the subset modulating a different light beam of the differently directed light beams of the selected multibeam diffraction grating, and wherein the super-pixel comprises a rectangular arrangement of the light valves in the subset, the rectangular arrangement having about twice as many light valves in a row direction of the offset rows of the multibeam diffraction grating array than in a direction substantially perpendicular to the row direction.

12. The method of 3D electronic display operation of claim 9 , further comprising generating a plurality of different color light beams using a plurality of different color optical emitters, each different color light beam of the light beam plurality being guided within the plate light guide at a different color-dependent non-zero propagation angle.

13. The 3D electronic display of claim 1 , wherein a multibeam diffraction grating of the array comprises a first grating region having first diffractive features and a second grating region having second diffractive features, the first and second diffractive features differing in at least one of feature spacing or feature orientation.