This is known as the Haas Trick, and was not invented by Helmut Haas, but just demonstrates the Haas Effect. Pan a signal to one extreme, and a ghost copy (delayed by 1-35ms) to the other. Changing the amount of delay gives different effects.
Roey Izhaki gives three examples of is use:
To fatten Sounds panned to extremes e.g. double tracked guitars
More realistic panning - our ears use amplitude, frequency and time differences to understand direction of a sound, pan pots only use amplitude. The Haas trick adds time, and frequency if we EQ one channel.
As a panning alternative.