How do holograms work??

If you want to see a hologram, you don't have to look much farther than your wallet. There are holograms on most driver's licenses, ID cards and credit cards. If you're not old enough to drive or use credit, you can still find holograms around your home. They're part of CD, DVD and software packaging, as well as just about everything sold as "official merchandise." Unfortunately, these holograms -- which exist to make forgery more difficult -- aren't very impressive. You can see changes in colors and shapes when you move them back and forth, but they usually just look like sparkly pictures or smears of color. Even the mass-produced holograms that feature movie and comic book heroes can look more like green photographs than amazing 3-D images. On the other hand, large-scale holograms, illuminated with lasers or displayed in a darkened room with carefully directed lighting, are incredible. They're two-dimensional surfaces that show absolutely precise, three-dimensional images of real objects. You don't even have to wear special glasses or look through a View-Master to see the images in 3-D. If you look at these holograms from different angles, you see objects from different perspectives, just like you would if you were looking at a real object. Some holograms even appear to move as you walk past them and look at them from different angles. Others change colors or include views of completely different objects, depending on how you look at them.

If you tear a hologram in half, you can still see the whole image in each piece. The same is true with smaller and smaller pieces. Holograms have other surprising traits as well. If you cut one in half, each half contains whole views of the entire holographic image. The same is true if you cut out a small piece -- even a tiny fragment will still contain the whole picture. On top of that, if you make a hologram of a magnifying glass, the holographic version will magnify the other objects in the hologram, just like a real one. Once you know the principles behind holograms, understanding how they can do all this is easy. This article will explain how a hologram, light and your brain work together make clear, 3-D images. All of a hologram's properties come directly from the process used to create it, so we'll start with an overview of what it takes to make one. Making a hologram Making a Hologram Transmission and Reflection There are two basic categories of holograms -- transmission and reflection. Transmission holograms create a 3-D image when monochromatic light, or light that is all one wavelength, travels through them. Reflection holograms create a 3-D image when laser light or white light reflects off of their surface. For the sake of simplicity, this article discusses transmission holograms viewed with the help of a laser except where noted. It doesn't take very many tools to make a hologram. You can make one with: A laser: Red lasers, usually helium-neon (HeNe) lasers, are common in holography. Some home holography experiments rely on the diodes from red laser pointers, but the light from a laser pointer tends to be less coherent and less stable, which can make it hard to get a good image. Some types of holograms use lasers that produce different colors of light as well. Depending on the type of laser you're using, you may also need a shutter to control the exposure.

Lenses: Holography is often referred to as "lensless photography," but holography does require lenses. However, a camera's lens focuses light, while the lenses used in holography cause the beam to spread out. A beam splitter: This is a device that uses mirrors and prisms to split one beam of light into two beams. Mirrors: These direct the beams of light to the correct locations. Along with the lenses and beam splitter, the mirrors have to be absolutely clean. Dirt and smudges can degrade the final image. Holographic film: Holographic film can record light at a very high resolution, which is necessary for creating a hologram. It's a layer of light-sensitive compounds on a transparent surface, like photographic film. The difference between holographic and photographic film is that holographic film has to be able to record very small changes in light that take place over microscopic distances. In other words, it needs to have a very fine grain. In some cases, holograms that use a red laser rely on emulsions that respond most strongly to red light.

There are lots of different ways to arrange these tools -- we'll stick to a basic transmission hologram setup for now. 1. 2. 3. The laser points at the beam splitter, which divides the beam of light into two parts. Mirrors direct the paths of these two beams so that they hit their intended targets. Each of the two beams passes through a diverging lens and becomes a wide swath of light rather than a narrow beam. One beam, the object beam, reflects off of the object and onto the photographic emulsion. The other beam, the reference beam, hits the emulsion without reflecting off of anything other than a mirror.

4. 5.

Workspace Requirements Getting a good image requires a suitable work space. In some ways, the requirements for this space are more stringent than the requirements for your equipment. The darker the room is, the better. A good option for adding a little light to the room without affecting the finished hologram is a safelight, like the ones used in darkrooms. Since darkroom safelights are often red and holography often uses red light, there are green and blue-green safelights made specifically for holography.

Image courtesy Consumer Guide Products Since holography typically uses red lasers, red darkroom safelights like this one may interfere with the final image.

Holography also requires a working surface that can keep the equipment absolutely still -- it can't vibrate when you walk across the room or when cars drive by outside. Holography labs and professional studios often use specially designed tables that have honeycomb-shaped support layers resting on pneumatic legs. These are under the table's top surface, and they dampen vibration. You can make your own holography table by placing inflated inner tubes on a low table, then placing a box full of a thick layer of sand on top of it. The sand and the inner tubes will play the role of the professional table's honeycombs and pneumatic supports. If you don't have enough space for such a large table, you can improvise using cups of sand or sugar to hold each piece of equipment, but these won't be as steady as a larger setup.

To make clear holograms, you need to reduce vibration in the air as well. Heating and air conditioning systems can blow the air around, and so can the movement of your body, your breath and even the dissipation of your body heat. For these reasons, you'll need to turn the heating and cooling system off and wait for a few minutes after setting up your equipment to make the hologram. These precautions sound a little like photography advice taken to the extreme -- when you take pictures with a camera, you have to keep your lens clean, control light levels and hold the camera absolutely still. This is because making a hologram is a lot like taking a picture with a microscopic level of detail. We'll look at how holograms are like photographs in the next section. Holograms and Photographs When you take a picture with a film camera, four basic steps happen in an instant: 1. 2. A shutter opens. Light passes through a lens and hits the photographic emulsion on a piece of film. A light-sensitive compound called silver halide reacts with the light, recording its amplitude, or intensity, as it reflects off of the scene in front of you. The shutter closes.

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You can make lots of changes to this process, like how far the shutter opens, how much the lens magnifies the scene and how much extra light you add to the mix. But no matter what changes you make, the four basic steps are still the same. In addition, regardless of changes to the setup, the resulting picture is still simply a recording of the intensity of reflected light. When you develop the film and make a print of the picture, your eyes and brain interpret the light that reflects from the picture as a representation of the original image. You can learn more about the process in How Vision Works, How Cameras Work and How Film Works.

In photography, light passes through a lens and a shutter before hitting a piece of film or a light-sensitive sensor. Like photographs, holograms are recordings of reflected light. Making them requires steps that are similar to what it takes to make a photograph:

1. A shutter opens or moves out of the path of a laser. (In some setups, a pulsed laser fires a single pulse of light, eliminating the need
2. 3. 4. for a shutter.) The light from the object beam reflects off of an object. The light from the reference beam bypasses the object entirely. The light from both beams comes into contact with the photographic emulsion, where light-sensitive compounds react to it. The shutter closes, blocking the light.

In holography, light passes through a shutter and lenses before striking a light-sensitive piece of holographic film. Just like with a photograph, the result of this process is a piece of film that has recorded the incoming light. However, when you develop the holographic plate and look at it, what you see is a little unusual. Developed film from a camera shows you a negative view of the original scene -- areas that were light are dark, and vice versa. When you look at the negative, you can still get a sense of what the original scene looked like. But when you look at a developed piece of film used to make a hologram, you don't see anything that looks like the original scene. Instead, you might see a dark frame of film or a random pattern of lines and swirls. Turning this frame of film into an image requires the right illumination. In a transmission hologram, monochromatic light shines through the hologram to make an image. In a reflection hologram, monochromatic or white light reflects off of the surface of the hologram to make an image. Your eyes and brain interpret the light shining through or reflecting off of the hologram as a representation of a three-dimensional object. The holograms you see on credit cards and stickers are reflection holograms. You need the right light source to see a hologram because it records the light's phase and amplitude like a code. Rather than recording a simple pattern of reflected light from a scene, it records the interference between the reference beam and the object beam. It does this as a pattern of tiny interference fringes. Each fringe can be smaller than one wavelength of the light used to create them. Decoding these interference fringes requires a key -- that key is the right kind of light. Next, we'll explore exactly how light makes interference fringes. Holograms and Light To understand how interference fringes form on film, you need to know a little bit about light. Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum -- it's made of high-frequency electrical and magnetic waves. These waves are fairly complex, but you can imagine them as similar to waves on water. They have peaks and troughs, and they travel in a straight line until they encounter an obstacle. Obstacles can absorb or reflect light, and most objects do some of both. Reflections from completely smooth surfaces are specular, or mirror-like, while reflections from rough surfaces are diffuse, or scattered. The wavelength of light is the distance from one peak of the wave to the next. This relates to the wave's frequency, or the number of waves that pass a point in a given period of time. The frequency of light determines its color and is measured in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz). Colors at the red end of the spectrum have lower frequencies, while colors at the violet end of the spectrum have higher frequencies. Light's amplitude, or the height of the waves, corresponds to its intensity.

Light reflection can be specular, mirror-like (left), diffuse or scattered.

White light, like sunlight, contains all of the different frequencies of light traveling in all directions, including ones that are beyond the visible spectrum. Although this light allows you to see everything around you, it's relatively chaotic. It contains lots of different wavelengths traveling in lots of different directions. Even waves of the same wavelength can be in a different phase, or alignment between the peaks and troughs. Laser light, on the other hand, is orderly. Lasers produce monochromatic light -- it has one wavelength and one color. The light that emerges from a laser is also coherent. All of the peaks and troughs of the waves are lined up, or in phase. The waves line up spatially, or across the wave of the beam, as well as temporally, or along the length of the beam. You can check out How Lasers Work to see precisely how a laser does this.

Light Reflection Redundancy If you tore a hologram of a mask in half, you could still see the whole mask in each half. But by removing half of the hologram, you also remove half of the information required to recreate the scene. For this reason, the resolution of the image you see in half a hologram isnt as good. In addition, the holographic plate doesnt get information about areas that are out of its line of sight, or physically blocked by the surface of the object. You can make and view a photograph using unorganized white light, but to make a hologram, you need the organized light of a laser. This is because photographs record only the amplitude of the light that hits the film, while holograms record differences in both amplitude and the phase. In order for the film to record these differences, the light has to start out with one wavelength and one phase across the entire beam. All the waves have to be identical when they leave the laser. Here's what happens when you turn on a laser to expose a holographic plate: 1. 2. 3. A column of light leaves the laser and passes through the beam splitter. The two columns reflect off of their respective mirrors and pass through their respective diverging lenses. The object reflects off of the object and combines with the reference beam at the holographic film.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about the object beam. One is that the object is not 100 percent reflective -- it absorbs some of the laser light that reaches it, changing the intensity of the object wave. The darker portions of the object absorb more light, and the lighter portions absorb less light. On top of that, the surface of the object is rough on a microscopic level, even if it looks smooth to the human eye, so it causes a diffuse reflection. It scatters light in every direction following the law of reflection. In other words, the angle of incidence, or the angle at which the light hits the surface, is the same as its angle of reflection, or the light at which it leaves the surface. This diffuse reflection causes light reflected from every part of the object to reach every part of the holographic plate. This is why a hologram is redundant -- each portion of the plate holds information about each portion of the object. The holographic plate captures the interaction between the object and reference beams. We'll look at how this happens next.

When light waves reflect, they follow the law of reflection. The angle at which they strike the surface is the same as the angle at which they leave it.

Capturing the Fringes The light-sensitive emulsion used to create holograms makes a record of the interference between the light waves in the reference and object beams. When two wave peaks meet, they amplify each other. This is constructive interference. When a peak meets a trough, they cancel one another out. This is destructive interference. You can think of the peak of a wave as a positive number and the trough as a negative number. At every point at which the two beams intersect, these two numbers add up, either flattening or amplifying that portion of the wave.

This a lot like what happens when you transmit information using radio waves. In amplitude modulation (AM) radio transmissions, you combine a sine wave with a wave of varying amplitudes. In frequency modulation (FM) radio transmissions, you combine a sine wave with a wave of varying frequencies. Either way, the sine wave is the carrier wave that is overlaid with a second wave that carries the information. In a hologram, the two intersecting light wave fronts form a pattern of hyperboloids -- three-dimensional shapes that look like hyperbolas rotated around one or more focal points. You can read more about hyperboloidal shapes at Wolfram MathWorld.

The holographic plate, resting where the two wave fronts collide, captures a cross-section, or a thin slice, of these three-dimensional shapes. If this sounds confusing, just imagine looking through the side of a clear aquarium full of water. If you drop two stones into the water at opposite ends of the aquarium, waves will spread toward the center in concentric rings. When the waves collide, they will constructively and

destructively interfere with each other. If you took a picture of this aquarium and covered up all but a thin slice in the middle, what you'd see is a cross-section of the interference between two sets of waves in one specific location.

You can visualize the interaction of light waves by imagining waves on water. The light that reaches the holographic emulsion is just like the waves in the aquarium. It has peaks and troughs, and some of the waves are taller while others are shorter. The silver halide in the emulsion responds to these light waves just like it responds to light waves in an ordinary photograph. When you develop the emulsion, parts of the emulsion that receive more intense light get darker, while those that receive less intense light stay a little lighter. These darker and lighter areas become the interference fringes. Bleaching the Emulsion Holographic Magnifying Glass If you make a hologram of a scene that includes a magnifying glass, the light from the object beam passes through the glass on its way to the emulsion. The magnifying glass spreads out the laser light, just like it would with ordinary light. This spread-out light is what forms part of the interference pattern on the emulsion. You can also use the holographic process to magnify images by positioning the object farther from the holographic plate. The light waves reflected off of the object can spread out farther before they reach the plate. You can magnify a displayed hologram by using a laser with a longer wavelength to illuminate it. The amplitude of the waves corresponds to the contrast between the fringes. The wavelength of the waves translates to the shape of each fringe. Both the spatial coherence and the contrast are a direct result of the laser beam's reflection off of the object. Turning these fringes back into images requires light. The trouble is that all the tiny, overlapping interference fringes can make the hologram so dark that it absorbs most of the light, letting very little pass through for image reconstruction. For this reason, processing holographic emulsion often requires bleaching using a bleach bath. Another alternative is to use a light-sensitive substance other than silver halide, such as dichromated gelatin, to record the interference fringes. Once a hologram is bleached, it is clear instead of dark. Its interference fringes still exist, but they have a different index of refraction rather than a darker color. The index of refraction is the difference between how fast light travels through a medium and how fast it travels through a vacuum. For example, the speed of a wave of light can change as it travels through air, water, glass, different gasses and different types of film. Sometimes, this produces visible distortions, like the apparent bending of a spoon placed in a half-full glass of water. Differences in the index of refraction also cause rainbows on soap bubbles and on oil stains in parking lots. In a bleached hologram, variations in the index of refraction change how the light waves travel through and reflect off of the interference fringes. These fringes are like a code. It takes your eyes, your brain and the right kind of light to decode them into an image. We'll look at how this happens in the next section. Recreating the Object Beam Holography and Mathematics You can describe all of the interactions between the object and reference beams, as well as the shapes of the interference fringes, using mathematical equations. This makes it possible to program a computer to print a pattern onto a holographic plate, creating a hologram of an object that doesnt actually exist.

The diffraction grating and reflective surfaces inside the hologram recreate the original object beam. This beam is absolutely identical to the original object beam before it was combined with the reference wave. This is what happens when you listen to the radio. Your radio receiver removes the sine wave that carried the amplitude- or frequency-modulated information. The wave of information returns to its original state, before it was combined with the sine wave for transmission. The beam also travels in the same direction as the original object beam, spreading out as it goes. Since the object was on the other side of the holographic plate, the beam travels toward you. Your eyes focus this light, and your brain interprets it as a three-dimensional image located behind the transparent hologram. This may sound far-fetched, but you encounter this phenomenon every day. Every time you look in a mirror, you see yourself and the surroundings behind you as though they were on the other side of the mirror's surface. But the light rays that make this image aren't on the other side of the mirror -- they're the ones that bounce off of the mirror's surface and reach your eyes. Most holograms also act like color filters, so you see the object as the same color as the laser used in its creation rather than its natural color. This virtual image comes from the light that hits the interference fringes and spreads out on the way to your eyes. However, light that hits the reverse side of each fringe does the opposite. Instead of moving upward and diverging, it moves downward and converges. It turns into a focused reproduction of the object -- a real image that you can see if you put a screen in its path. The real image is pseudoscopic, or flipped back to front -- it's the opposite of the virtual image that you can see without the aid of a screen. With the right illumination, holograms can display both images at the same time. However, in some cases, whether you see the real or the virtual image depends on what side of the hologram is facing you. Your brain plays a big role in your perception of both of these images. When your eyes detect the light from the virtual image, your brain interprets it as a beam of light reflected from a real object. Your brain uses multiple cues, including, shadows, the relative positions of different objects, distances and parallax, or differences in angles, to interpret this scene correctly. It uses these same cues to interpret the pseudoscopic real image. This description applies to transmission holograms made with silver halide emulsion. Next, we'll look at some other types of holograms. Other Hologram Types The holograms you can buy as novelties or see on your driver's license are reflection holograms. These are usually mass-produced using a stamping method. When you develop a holographic emulsion, the surface of the emulsion collapses as the silver halide grains are reduced to pure silver. This changes the texture of the emulsion's surface. One method of mass-producing holograms is coating this surface in metal to strengthen it, then using it to stamp the interference pattern into metallic foil. A lot of the time, you can view these holograms in normal white light. You can also mass-produce holograms by printing them from a master hologram, similar to the way you can create lots of photographic prints from the same negative.

Image courtesy Dreamstime The holograms found on credit cards and other everyday objects are mass-produced by stamping the pattern of the hologram onto the foil. But reflection holograms can also be as elaborate as the transmission holograms we already discussed. There are lots of object and laser setups that can produce these types of holograms. A common one is an inline setup, with the laser, the emulsion and the object all in one line. The beam from the laser starts out as the reference beam. It passes through the emulsion, bounces off the object on the other side, and returns to the emulsion as the object beam, creating an interference pattern. You view this hologram when white or monochrome light reflects off of its surface. You're still seeing a virtual image -- your brain's interpretation of light waves that seem to be coming from a real object on the other side of the hologram.

Reflection holograms are often thicker than transmission holograms. There is more physical space for recording interference fringes. This also means that there are more layers of reflective surfaces for the light to hit. You can think of holograms that are made this way as having multiple layers that are only about half a wavelength deep. When light enters the first layer, some of it reflects back toward the light source, and some continues to the next layer, where the process repeats. The light from each layer interferes with the light in the layers above it. This is known as the Bragg effect, and it's a necessary part of the reconstruction of the object beam in reflection holograms. In addition, holograms with a strong Bragg effect are known as thick holograms, while those with little Bragg effect are thin. The Bragg effect can also change the way the hologram reflects light, especially in holograms that you can view in white light. At different viewing angles, the Bragg effect can be different for different wavelengths of light. This means that you might see the hologram as one color from one angle and another color from another angle. The Bragg effect is also one of the reasons why most novelty holograms appear green even though they were created with a red laser.

Multiple Images In movies, holograms can appear to move and recreate entire animated scenes in midair, but today's holograms can only mimic movement. You can get the illusion of movement by exposing one holographic emulsion multiple times at different angles using objects in different positions. The hologram only creates each image when light strikes it from the right angle. When you view this hologram from different angles, your brain interprets the differences in the images as movement. It's like you're viewing a holographic flip book. You can also use a pulsed laser that fires for a minute fraction of a second to make still holograms of objects in motion.

Image 1996-2007 Holophile, Inc. The famous hologram "The Kiss" shows a sequence of similar, stationary images. Your eye sees many frames simultaneously, and your brain interprets them as moving images. Multiple exposures of the same plate can lead to other effects as well. You can expose the plate from two angles using two completely different images, creating one hologram that displays different images depending on viewing angle. Exposing the same plate using the exact same scene and red, green and blue lasers can create a full-color hologram. This process is tricky, though, and it's not usually used for mass-produced holograms. You can also expose the same scene before and after the subject has experienced some kind of stimulus, like a gust of wind or a vibration. This lets researchers see exactly how the stimulus changed the object. The First Hologram

Dennis Gabor invented holograms in 1947. He was attempting to find a method for improving the resolution of electron microscopes. However, lasers, which are necessary for creating and displaying good holograms, were not invented until 1960. Gabor used a mercury vapor lamp, which produced monochrome blue light, and filters make his light more coherent. Gabor won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention in 1971. Using lasers to make three-dimensional images of objects may sound like a novelty or a form of art. But holograms have an increasing number of practical uses. Scientists can use holograms to study objects in three dimensions, and they can use acoustical holography to create threedimensional reconstructions of sound waves. Holographic memory has also become an increasingly common method of storing large amounts of data in a very small space. Some researchers even believe that the human brain stores information in a manner that is much like a hologram. Although holograms don't currently move like they do in the movies, researchers are studying ways to project fully 3-D holograms into visible air. In the future, you may be able to use holograms to do everything from watching TV to deciding which hair style will look best on you. Holography Hologram artwork in MIT Museum Holography (from the Greek hlos, "whole" + graf, "writing, drawing") is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system (a camera or an eye) is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes in exactly the same way as if the object were still present, thus making the image appear three-dimensional. The holographic recording itself is not an image it consists of an apparently random structure of either varying intensity, density or profile an example can be seen below. The technique of holography can also be used to store, retrieve, and process information optically. While it has been possible to create a 3-D holographic picture of a static object since the 1960s, it is only in the last few years[1] that arbitrary scenes or videos can be shown on a holographic volumetric display.[2][3] [edit] Overview and history Holography was invented in 1947 by the Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor (Hungarian name: Gbor Dnes),[4][5] work for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971. Pioneering work in the field of physics by other scientists including Mieczysaw Wolfke resolved technical issues that previously had prevented advancement. The discovery was an unexpected result of research into improving electron microscopes at the British Thomson-Houston Company in Rugby, England, and the company filed a patent in December 1947 (patent GB685286). The technique as originally invented is still used in electron microscopy, where it is known as electron holography, but holography as a light-optical technique did not really advance until the development of the laser in 1960. The first practical optical holograms that recorded 3D objects were made in 1962 by Yuri Denisyuk in the Soviet Union[6] and by Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks at University of Michigan, USA.[7] Advances in photochemical processing techniques to produce high-quality display holograms were achieved by Nicholas J. Phillips.[8] Several types of holograms can be made. Transmission holograms, such as those produced by Leith and Upatnieks, are viewed by shining laser light through them and looking at the reconstructed image from the side of the hologram opposite the source. A later refinement, the "rainbow transmission" hologram, allows more convenient illumination by white light rather than by lasers. Rainbow holograms are commonly seen today on credit cards as a security feature and on product packaging. These versions of the rainbow transmission hologram are commonly formed as surface relief patterns in a plastic film, and they incorporate a reflective aluminum coating that provides the light from "behind" to reconstruct their imagery. Another kind of common hologram, the reflection or Denisyuk hologram, is capable of multicolour-image reproduction, using a white-light illumination source on the same side of the hologram as the viewer. Specular holography[9] is a related technique for making three-dimensional imagery by controlling the motion of specularities on a twodimensional surface. It works by reflectively or refractively manipulating bundles of light rays, whereas Gabor-style holography works by diffractively reconstructing wavefronts. One of the most promising recent advances in the short history of holography has been the mass production of low-cost solid-state lasers, such as those found in millions of DVD recorders and used in other common applications, which are sometimes also useful for holography. These cheap, compact, solid-state lasers can, under some circumstances, compete well with the large, expensive gas lasers previously required to make holograms and are already helping to make holography much more accessible to low-budget researchers, artists and dedicated hobbyists. It was thought that it would be possible to use X-rays to make holograms of molecules and view them using visible light. However, X-ray holograms have not been created to date.[10] [edit] How holography works A detailed theoretical account of how holography works is provided by Hariharan.[11] [edit] The basics

Holographic recording process Holography is a technique which enables a light field to be recorded, and reconstructed later when the original light field is no longer present. It is analogous to sound recording where the sound field is encoded in such a way that it can later be reproduced. Though holography is often referred to as 3D photography, this is a misconception. A photograph represents a single fixed image of a scene, whereas a hologram, when illuminated appropriately, re-creates the light which came from the original scene; this can be viewed from different distances and at different orientations just as if the original scene were present. The hologram itself consists of a very fine random pattern, which appears to bear no relationship to the scene which it has recorded. To record a hologram, some of the light scattered from an object or a set of objects falls on the recording medium. A second light beam, known as the reference beam, also illuminates the recording medium, so that interference occurs between the two beams. The resulting light field generates a seemingly random pattern of varying intensity, which is recorded in the hologram. The figure below is a photograph of part of a hologram the object was a toy van. The photograph was taken by backlighting the hologram with diffuse light, and focusing on the surface of the plate.

Photograph of a transmission hologram It is important to note that the holographic recording is contained in the random intensity structure (which is a speckle pattern), and not in the more regular structure, which is due to interference arising from multiple reflections in the glass plate on which the photographic emulsion is mounted. It is no more possible to discern the subject of the hologram from this random pattern than it is to identify what music has been recorded by looking at the hills and valleys on a gramophone record surface or the pits on a CD.

Holographic reconstruction process When the original reference beam illuminates the hologram, it is diffracted by the recorded hologram to produce a light field which is identical to the light field which was originally scattered by the object or objects onto the hologram. When the object is removed, an observer who looks into the hologram "sees" the same image on his retina as he would have seen when looking at the original scene. This image is a virtual image as the rays forming the image are all divergent. The figure shown at the top of this article is an image produced by a camera which is located in front of the developed hologram which is being illuminated with the original reference beam. The camera is focused as if on the original scene, not on the hologram itself. [edit] Holography explained in terms of interference and diffraction For a better understanding of the process, it is necessary to understand interference and diffraction. Interference occurs when one or more wavefronts are superimposed. Diffraction occurs whenever a wavefront encounters an object. The process of producing a holographic reconstruction is explained below purely in terms of interference and diffraction. It is somewhat simplified but is accurate enough to provide an understanding of how the holographic process works. For those unfamiliar with these concepts, it is worthwhile to read the respective articles before reading further in this article. [edit] Plane wavefronts A diffraction grating is a structure with a repeating pattern. A simple example is a metal plate with slits cut at regular intervals. A light wave incident on a grating is split into several waves; the direction of these diffracted waves is determined by the grating spacing and the wavelength of the light. A simple hologram can be made by superimposing two plane waves from the same light source on a holographic recording medium. The two waves interfere giving a fringe pattern whose intensity varies sinusoidally across the medium. The spacing of the fringe pattern is determined by the angle between the two waves, and on the wavelength of the light. The recorded light pattern is a diffraction grating. When it is illuminated by only one of the waves used to create it, it can be shown that one of the diffracted waves emerges at the same angle as that at which the second wave was originally incident so that the second wave has been 'reconstructed'. Thus, the recorded light pattern is a holographic recording as defined above.

[edit] Point sources

Sinusoidal zone plate If the recording medium is illuminated with a point source and a normally incident plane wave, the resulting pattern is a sinusoidal zone plate which acts as a negative Fresnel lens whose focal length is equal to the separation of the point source and the recording plane. When a plane wavefront illuminates a negative lens, it is expanded into a wave which appears to diverge from the focal point of the lens. Thus, when the recorded pattern is illuminated with the original plane wave, some of the light is diffracted into a diverging beam equivalent to the original plane wave; a holographic recording of the point source has been created. When the plane wave is incident at a non-normal angle, the pattern formed is more complex but still acts as a negative lens provided it is illuminated at the original angle. [edit] Complex objects To record a hologram of a complex object, a laser beam is first split into two separate beams of light. One beam illuminates the object, which then scatters light onto the recording medium. According to diffraction theory, each point in the object acts as a point source of light so the recording medium can be considered to be illuminated by a set of point sources located at varying distances from the medium. The second (reference) beam illuminates the recording medium directly. Each point source wave interferes with the reference beam, giving rise to its own sinusoidal zone plate in the recording medium. The resulting pattern is the sum of all these 'zone plates' which combine to produce a random (speckle) pattern as in the photograph above. When the hologram is illuminated by the original reference beam, each of the individual zone plates reconstructs the object wave which produced it, and these individual wavefronts add together to reconstruct the whole of the object beam. The viewer perceives a wavefront that is identical to the wavefront scattered from the object onto the recording medium, so that it appears to him or her that the object is still in place even if it has been removed. This image is known as a "virtual" image, as it is generated even though the object is no longer there. [edit] A simplified mathematical model of the recording and reconstruction process A light wave can be modelled by a complex number U, which represents the electric or magnetic field of the light wave. The amplitude and phase of the light are represented by the absolute value and angle of the complex number. The object and reference waves at any point in the holographic system are given by UO and UR. The combined beam is given by UO + UR. The energy of the combined beams is proportional to the square of magnitude of the combined waves as:

If a photographic plate is exposed to the two beams and then developed, its transmittance, T, is proportional to the light energy that was incident on the plate and is given by

where k is a constant. When the developed plate is illuminated by the reference beam, the light transmitted through the plate, UH is equal to the transmittance T multiplied by the reference beam amplitude UR, giving

It can be seen that UH has four terms, each representing a light beam emerging from the hologram. The first of these is proportional to UO. This is the reconstructed object beam which enables a viewer to 'see' the original object even when it is no longer present in the field of view. The second and third beams are modified versions of the reference beam. The fourth term is known as the "conjugate object beam". It has the reverse curvature to the object beam itself and forms a real image of the object in the space beyond the holographic plate. When the reference and object beams are incident on the holographic recording medium at significantly different angles, the virtual, real and reference wavefronts all emerge at different angles, enabling the reconstructed object to be seen clearly. [edit] The efficiency of a hologram The efficiency of a hologram is a measure of the fraction of the reference beam energy which is converted into reconstructed beam energy. There are several recording medium and set-up parameters which affect holographic efficiency: the recording medium may be thin or thick (the latter is known as a volume hologram) the holographic recording may involve phase or amplitude modulation the reconstruction may be made by transmission or by reflection

A thin hologram is one where the thickness of the recording material is significantly smaller than the spacing of the interference pattern which makes up the hologram. In a volume, or thick, hologram, the depth of the recording material is equal to or significantly greater than the fringe spacing. An amplitude modulated hologram is one where the optical transmittance of the recording medium varies with the intensity of the fringe pattern. A phase hologram is one where the phase of the re-constructing reference beam varies according to the intensity of the recorded fringe pattern. A transmission hologram is one where the object and reference beams are incident on the recording medium from the same side, whereas a reflection hologram has the object and reference beams incident from opposite sides; the reconstructing beam is then incident on the hologram from the same side as that where the viewer of the reconstruction is located. [edit] Thin holograms The discussion above of how holography works, relates to a thin amplitude transmission hologram. The transmittance of the recorded hologram varies with the intensity of the interference pattern produced by the combined object and reference beams. A straightforward example of this is the use of photographic emulsion on a transparent substrate. The emulsion is exposed to the interference pattern, and is subsequently developed giving a transmittance which varies with the intensity of the pattern. In a phase transmission hologram, the transmittance of the recording is proportional to the phase of the recorded fringe pattern. It can be shown that when such a plate is illuminated by the original reference beam, it is diffracted into several different beams, one of which is equivalent to the original object wavefront. A phase hologram is made by changing either the thickness or the refractive index of the material in proportion to the intensity of the holographic interference pattern. Many of the recording media listed below act as phase recording media. Photographic emulsion recordings, which give amplitude recordings when developed under normal conditions, can be converted to phase modulation recordings by a process known as bleaching.[12] It should be noted that if a thin hologram is illuminated with a broad spectrum light beam (for example a white light source), each wavelength will reconstruct an object beam of slightly differing shape and size, and the net effect will be that the original object will not be discernible. [edit] Volume holograms It might appear at first sight that a hologram could not be made using a recording medium whose thickness is much greater than the wavelength of the light used to make the hologram, because the interference pattern recorded will now be three dimensional and its structure will vary significantly with hologram depth so that it cannot give rise to a single reconstructed object beam. This is not the case, however. Consider a simple hologram made from two plane waves which intersect in the recording medium, one being incident normally, and the other incident at an angle as above. An interference pattern is formed consisting of planes of constant phase, whose spacing is given by d = /sin . If the hologram is illuminated with one of the original plane waves, Bragg's law shows that diffracted waves occur at angles given by sin = n/d, where n is an integer. The first of these beams. which is also the most powerful, can be shown to correspond to the second of the original beams, and is therefore effectively a reconstructed object beam. The arguments used above to show how a hologram can be made using a point source, and then a complex object which can be considered to be a set of point sources, can be applied again here to show that a volume hologram can reconstruct the object beam when illuminated by the original reference beam. A significant advantage of a volume hologram compared with a thin hologram is that the reconstructed beam only occurs at the Bragg angle, which means that if it is illuminated with a light source which has a broad spectrum of wavelengths, reconstruction occurs only at the wavelength of the original laser used. This allows the holographic reconstruction to be done using a white light source, as is the case with most display and security holograms. Reflection holograms can only be made using volume holograms. The main advantage of a reflection hologram is that the reference beam is incident on the same side of the hologram as where the viewer is located, making viewing more convenient. Volume reflection holograms can have either amplitude or phase modulation. A volume reflection hologram is often referred to as a Denisyuk hologram.[13] [edit] Theoretical maximum efficiencies The maximum theoretical efficiencies of the various types of holographic recordings, as quoted by Hariharan,[11] are given in the table below. Thin transmission Volume transmission Volume reflection Amplitude modulation 6.3% 3.7% 7.2% Phase modulation 34% 100% 100% [edit] Practical aspects [edit] Making a hologram The object and the reference beams must be able to produce an interference pattern that is stable during the time in which the holographic recording is made. To do this, they must have the same frequency and the same relative phase during this time, that is, they must be mutually coherent. Many laser beams satisfy this condition, and lasers have been used to make holograms since their invention, though the first holograms by Gabor used "quasi-chromatic" light sources. In principle, two separate light sources could be used if the coherence condition could be satisfied, but in practice, a single laser is always used.

In addition, the medium used to record the fringe pattern must be able to resolve it, and some of the more common media used are listed below. The spacing of the fringes depends on the angle between the object and reference beams. For example, if this angle is 45 and the wavelength of the light is 0.5 m, the fringe spacing is about 0.7 m or 1400 lines/mm. A working hologram can be obtained even if not all the fringes are resolved, but the resolution of the image is reduced as the resolution of the recording medium decreases. These are discussed in a section below. Mechanical stability is also very important when making a hologram. If the phase of one beam changes with respect to the other due to vibration or air movement, the fringe pattern moves across the field of view. If the fringe pattern moves by one or more fringe spacings, the light intensity is averaged out, and no holographic recording is obtained. A relative path change of half a wavelength shifts the interference pattern by one fringe. Thus, the stability requirement is very stringent. Generally, the coherence length of the light determines the maximum depth in the scene of interest that can be recorded holographically. A good holography laser will typically have a coherence length of several meters, ample for a deep hologram. Certain pen laser pointers have been used to make small holograms (see External links). The size of these holograms is not restricted by the coherence length of the laser pointers (which can exceed several meters), but by their low power of below 5 mW. The objects that form the scene must, in general, have optically rough surfaces so that they scatter light over a wide range of angles. A specularly reflecting (or shiny) surface reflects the light in only one direction at each point on its surface, so in general, most of the light will not be incident on the recording medium. The light scattered from objects with a rough surface forms an objective speckle pattern that has random amplitude and phase. The reference beam is not normally a plane wavefront; it is usually a divergent wavefront that is formed by placing a convex lens in the path of the laser beam. [edit] Reconstructing and viewing the hologram To reconstruct the object beam, the hologram plate is illuminated with a reference beam which is similar to the reference beam used in the recording. The reconstructed object beam is diffracted from the hologram, and an image of the object is formed when an imaging lens (an eye or a camera) is placed into the reconstructed beam, even though the object is no longer present. An image can be formed from any point in the reconstructed beam. If the lens is moved, the image changes in the same way as it would have done when the object was in place. If several objects were present when the hologram was recorded, the reconstructed objects will exhibit parallax in the same way as the original objects would have done. It was very common in the early days of holography to use a chess board as the object and then take photographs at several different angles using the reconstructed light to show how the relative positions of the chess pieces appeared to change. [edit] Fidelity of the reconstructed beam To replicate the original object beam exactly, the reconstructing reference beam must be identical to the original reference beam and the recording medium must be able to fully resolve the interference pattern formed between the object and reference beams. Any change in the shape, orientation or wavelength of the reference beam gives a distorted reconstruction. For instance, the reconstructed image is magnified if the laser used to reconstruct the hologram has a shorter wavelength than the original laser. Nonetheless, good reconstruction is obtained using a laser of a different wavelength and reflection holograms can be reconstructed using white light or sunlight. Exact reconstruction is required in holographic interferometry, where the holographically reconstructed wavefront interferes with the live wavefront, giving a null fringe if there has been no movement of the object and mapping out the displacement if the object has moved. This requires very precise relocation of the developed holographic plate. The recording medium should be able to resolve fully all the fringes arising from interference between object and reference beam. In an offaxis holographic recording, these fringe spacings can range from tens of microns to less than one micron, i.e. spatial frequencies ranging from 2001200 cycles/mm so ideally, the recording medium should have a response which is flat over this range see recording media below. If the response of the medium to these spatial frequencies is low, the diffraction efficiency of the hologram will be poor, and a dim image will be obtained. If the response is not flat over the range of spatial frequencies in the interference pattern, then the resolution of the reconstructed image will also be degraded.[11][14] It should be noted that standard photographic film has a very low, or even zero, response at the frequencies involved and cannot be used to make a hologram. Since each point in the object illuminates all of the hologram, the whole object can be reconstructed from a small part of the hologram. Thus, a hologram can be broken up into small pieces and each one will enable the whole of the original object to be imaged. One does, however, lose information and the spatial resolution gets worse as the size of the hologram is decreased the image becomes "fuzzier". [edit] Holographic recording media The recording medium must be able to resolve the interference fringes as discussed above. It must also be sufficiently sensitive to record the fringe pattern in a time period short enough for the system to remain optically stable, i.e., any relative movement of the two beams must be significantly less than /2. It is possible to record holograms in certain materials using a high-power pulsed laser technique that uses only a couple of nanoseconds to record the holographic pattern.[15] The recording medium has to convert the interference pattern into an optical element that modifies either the amplitude or the phase of the holographic interference pattern to produce either an amplitude or a phase hologram. Most materials used for phase holograms reach the theoretical diffraction efficiency for holograms, which is 100% for thick holograms (Bragg diffraction regime) and 33.9% for thin holograms (Raman-Nath diffraction regime, holographic films typically some micrometers thick). Amplitude holograms have a lower efficiency than phase holograms and are therefore used more rarely.

The table below shows the principal materials for holographic recording. Note that these do not include the materials used in the mass replication of an existing hologram. The resolution limit given in the table indicates the maximal number of interference lines per millimeter of the gratings. The required exposure is for a long exposure. Short exposure times (less than 1/1000 of a second, such as with a pulsed laser) require a higher exposure due to reciprocity failure. General properties of recording materials for holography. Source:[16] Required exposure Material Reusable Processing Type of hologram Max. efficiency [mJ/cm2] Amplitude 6% Photographic emulsions No Wet 0.0010.1 Phase (bleached) 60% Dichromated gelatin No Wet Phase 100% 10 Photoresists No Wet Phase 33% 10 Photothermoplastics Yes Charge and heat Phase 33% 0.01 Photopolymers No Post exposure Phase 100% 11,000 Photochromics Yes None Amplitude 2% 10100 Photorefractives Yes None Phase 100% 0.150,000 Elastomers[17] No None Phase 300 [edit] Embossing and mass production An existing hologram can be replicated, either in an optical way similar to holographic recording or, in the case of surface relief holograms, by embossing. Surface relief holograms are recorded in photoresists or photothermoplastics and allow cheap mass reproduction. Such embossed holograms are now widely used, for instance, as security features on credit cards or quality merchandise. The Royal Canadian Mint even produces holographic gold and silver coinage through a complex stamping process.[18] The first book to feature a hologram on the front cover was The Skook (Warner Books, 1984) by JP Miller, featuring an illustration by Miller. That same year, "Telstar" by Ad Infinitum became the first record with a hologram cover and National Geographic published the first magazine with a hologram cover.[19] The first step in the embossing process is to make a stamper by electrodeposition of nickel on the relief image recorded on the photoresist or photothermoplastic. When the nickel layer is thick enough, it is separated from the master hologram and mounted on a metal backing plate. The material used to make embossed copies consists of a polyester base film, a resin separation layer and a thermoplastic film constituting the holographic layer. The embossing process can be carried out with a simple heated press. The bottom layer of the duplicating film (the thermoplastic layer) is heated above its softening point and pressed against the stamper, so that it takes up its shape. This shape is retained when the film is cooled and removed from the press. In order to permit the viewing of embossed holograms in reflection, an additional reflecting layer of aluminum is usually added on the hologram recording layer. It is possible to print holograms directly into steel using a sheet explosive charge to create the required surface relief.[20] [edit] Applications [edit] Art Early on, artists saw the potential of holography as a medium and gained access to science laboratories to create their work. Holographic art is often the result of collaborations between scientists and artists, although some holographers would regard themselves as both an artist and a scientist. Salvador Dal claimed to have been the first to employ holography artistically. He was certainly the first and best-known surrealist to do so, but the 1972 New York exhibit of Dal holograms had been preceded by the holographic art exhibition that was held at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1968 and by the one at the Finch College gallery in New York in 1970, which attracted national media attention.[21] During the 1970s, a number of art studios and schools were established, each with their particular approach to holography. Notably, there was the San Francisco School of Holography established by Lloyd Cross, The Museum of Holography in New York founded by Rosemary (Possie) H. Jackson, the Royal College of Art in London and the Lake Forest College Symposiums organised by Tung Jeong (T.J.).[22] None of these studios still exist; however, there is the Center for the Holographic Arts in New York[23] and the HOLOcenter in Seoul,[24] which offers artists a place to create and exhibit work. During the 1980s, many artists who worked with holography helped the diffusion of this so-called "new medium" in the art world, such as Harriet Casdin-Silver of the USA, Dieter_Jung_(artist) of Germany, and Moyss Baumstein of Brazil, each one searching for a proper "language" to use with the three-dimensional work, avoiding the simple holographic reproduction of a sculpture or object. For instance, in Brazil, many concrete poets (Augusto de Campos, Dcio Pignatari, Julio Plaza and Jos Wagner Garcia, associated with Moyss Baumstein) found in holography a way to express themselves and to renew the Concrete Poetry (or Shape Poetry). A small but active group of artists still use holography as their main medium, and many more artists integrate holographic elements into their work.[25] Some are associated with novel holographic techniques; for example, artist Matt Brand[26] employed computational mirror design to eliminate image distortion from specular holography. The MIT Museum[27] and Jonathan Ross[28] both have extensive collections of holography and on-line catalogues of art holograms. [edit] Data storage Main article: Holographic memory

Resolution limit [mm1] 1,00010,000 10,000 3,000 5001,200 2,0005,000 >5,000 2,00010,000

Holography can be put to a variety of uses other than recording images. Holographic data storage is a technique that can store information at high density inside crystals or photopolymers. The ability to store large amounts of information in some kind of media is of great importance, as many electronic products incorporate storage devices. As current storage techniques such as Blu-ray Disc reach the limit of possible data density (due to the diffraction-limited size of the writing beams), holographic storage has the potential to become the next generation of popular storage media. The advantage of this type of data storage is that the volume of the recording media is used instead of just the surface. Currently available SLMs can produce about 1000 different images a second at 10241024-bit resolution. With the right type of media (probably polymers rather than something like LiNbO3), this would result in about one-gigabit-per-second writing speed. Read speeds can surpass this, and experts believe one-terabit-per-second readout is possible. In 2005, companies such as Optware and Maxell produced a 120 mm disc that uses a holographic layer to store data to a potential 3.9 TB, which they plan to market under the name Holographic Versatile Disc. Another company, InPhase Technologies, is developing a competing format. While many holographic data storage models have used "page-based" storage, where each recorded hologram holds a large amount of data, more recent research into using submicrometre-sized "microholograms" has resulted in several potential 3D optical data storage solutions. While this approach to data storage can not attain the high data rates of page-based storage, the tolerances, technological hurdles, and cost of producing a commercial product are significantly lower. [edit] Dynamic holography In static holography, recording, developing and reconstructing occur sequentially, and a permanent hologram is produced. There also exist holographic materials that do not need the developing process and can record a hologram in a very short time. This allows one to use holography to perform some simple operations in an all-optical way. Examples of applications of such real-time holograms include phase-conjugate mirrors ("time-reversal" of light), optical cache memories, image processing (pattern recognition of time-varying images), and optical computing. The amount of processed information can be very high (terabits/s), since the operation is performed in parallel on a whole image. This compensates for the fact that the recording time, which is in the order of a microsecond, is still very long compared to the processing time of an electronic computer. The optical processing performed by a dynamic hologram is also much less flexible than electronic processing. On one side, one has to perform the operation always on the whole image, and on the other side, the operation a hologram can perform is basically either a multiplication or a phase conjugation. In optics, addition and Fourier transform are already easily performed in linear materials, the latter simply by a lens. This enables some applications, such as a device that compares images in an optical way.[29] The search for novel nonlinear optical materials for dynamic holography is an active area of research. The most common materials are photorefractive crystals, but in semiconductors or semiconductor heterostructures (such as quantum wells), atomic vapors and gases, plasmas and even liquids, it was possible to generate holograms. A particularly promising application is optical phase conjugation. It allows the removal of the wavefront distortions a light beam receives when passing through an aberrating medium, by sending it back through the same aberrating medium with a conjugated phase. This is useful, for example, in free-space optical communications to compensate for atmospheric turbulence (the phenomenon that gives rise to the twinkling of starlight). [edit] Hobbyist use Peace Within Reach, a Denisyuk DCG hologram by amateur Dave Battin Since the beginning of holography, experimenters have explored its uses. Starting in 1971, Lloyd Cross started the San Francisco School of Holography and started to teach amateurs the methods of making holograms with inexpensive equipment. This method relied on the use of a large table of deep sand to hold the optics rigid and damp vibrations that would destroy the image. Many of these holographers would go on to produce art holograms. In 1983, Fred Unterseher published the Holography Handbook, a remarkably easy-to-read description of making holograms at home. This brought in a new wave of holographers and gave simple methods to use the then-available AGFA silver halide recording materials. In 2000, Frank DeFreitas published the Shoebox Holography Book and introduced using inexpensive laser pointers to countless hobbyists. This was a very important development for amateurs, as the cost for a 5 mW laser dropped from $1200 to $5 as semiconductor laser diodes reached mass market. Now, there are hundreds to thousands of amateur holographers worldwide. In 2006, a large number of surplus Holography Quality Green Lasers (Coherent C315) became available and put Dichromated Gelatin (DCG) within the reach of the amateur holographer. The holography community was surprised at the amazing sensitivity of DCG to green light. It had been assumed that the sensitivity would be non-existent. Jeff Blyth responded with the G307 formulation of DCG to increase the speed and sensitivity to these new lasers.[30] Many film suppliers have come and gone from the silver-halide market. While more film manufactures have filled in the voids, many amateurs are now making their own film. The favorite formulations are Dichromated Gelatin, Methylene Blue Sensitised Dichromated Gelatin and Diffusion Method Silver Halide preparations. Jeff Blyth has published very accurate methods for making film in a small lab or garage.[31] A small group of amateurs are even constructing their own pulsed lasers to make holograms of moving objects.[32] [edit] Holographic interferometry Main article: holographic interferometry

Holographic interferometry (HI)[33][34] is a technique that enables static and dynamic displacements of objects with optically rough surfaces to be measured to optical interferometric precision (i.e. to fractions of a wavelength of light). It can also be used to detect optical-path-length variations in transparent media, which enables, for example, fluid flow to be visualized and analyzed. It can also be used to generate contours representing the form of the surface. It has been widely used to measure stress, strain, and vibration in engineering structures. [edit] Holoprinters This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011) A holoprinter is a holographic printing device that can print out full-colour digital holograms from a rendered 3D model or a video series. The machine can cost up to half a million dollars and is about the size of a small room. It uses red, green and blue lasers to write a series of dots, or holopixels, across a holographic medium. The holopixel contains information about the whole image from its own unique perspective. The information for each holopixel is computed from a series of rendered images generated via computer graphics. The holographic medium is typically a polymer film. The film may require development after exposure. It is then laminated on to a hard plastic backing. Printing a digital hologram can take several hours, as each holopixel dot has to be written individually in three colours, where the colours overlap within the medium. The size of a holopixel is typically around a square millimeter. There are only a few digital holoprinter manufacturers in the world, including Geola (Lithuania), View Holographics (UK) and Zebra Imaging (US). [edit] Interferometric microscopy Main article: Interferometric microscopy The hologram keeps the information on the amplitude and phase of the field. Several holograms may keep information about the same distribution of light, emitted to various directions. The numerical analysis of such holograms allows one to emulate large numerical aperture, which, in turn, enables enhancement of the resolution of optical microscopy. The corresponding technique is called interferometric microscopy. Recent achievements of interferometric microscopy allow one to approach the quarter-wavelength limit of resolution.[35] [edit] Sensors or biosensors Main article: Holographic sensor The hologram is made with a modified material that interacts with certain molecules generating a change in the fringe periodicity or refractive index, therefore, the color of the holographic reflection.[36] [edit] Security Main article: Security hologram Identigram as a security element in a German identity card UBS Kinebar gold bars use kinegrams as a security measure. Security holograms are very difficult to forge, because they are replicated from a master hologram that requires expensive, specialized and technologically advanced equipment. They are used widely in many currencies, such as the Brazilian real 20 note, British pound 5/10/20 notes, Estonian kroon 25/50/100/500 notes, Canadian dollar 5/10/20/50/100 notes, Euro 5/10/20/50/100/200/500 notes, South Korean won 5000/10000/50000 notes, and Japanese yen 5000/10000 notes. They are also used in credit and bank cards as well as passports, ID cards, books, DVDs, and sports equipment. Holography allows for different levels of security, depending on budget and intensity of security. The highest level of security in fully custom holography, this involves the design and creation of unique images in three dimensions, cost can range from $5,000 to $15,000. For a tightly budgeted project, there are two choices of hologram: overprint holographic diffraction foil or custom etched diffraction material, which are not dimensional but diffract light into patterns of bright rainbow light. [edit] Other applications Holographic scanners are in use in post offices, larger shipping firms, and automated conveyor systems to determine the three-dimensional size of a package. They are often used in tandem with checkweighers to allow automated pre-packing of given volumes, such as a truck or pallet for bulk shipment of goods. Holograms produced in elastomers can be used as stress-strain reporters due to its elasticity and compressibility, the pressure and force applied are correlated to the reflected wavelength, therefore its color.[37] [edit] Non-optical holography In principle, it is possible to make a hologram for any wave.

Electron holography is the application of holography techniques to electron waves rather than light waves. Electron holography was invented by Dennis Gabor to improve the resolution and avoid the aberrations of the transmission electron microscope. Today it is commonly used to study electric and magnetic fields in thin films, as magnetic and electric fields can shift the phase of the interfering wave passing through the sample.[38] The principle of electron holography can also be applied to interference lithography.[39] Acoustic holography is a method used to estimate the sound field near a source by measuring acoustic parameters away from the source via an array of pressure and/or particle velocity transducers. Measuring techniques included within acoustic holography are becoming increasingly popular in various fields, most notably those of transportation, vehicle and aircraft design, and NVH. The general idea of acoustic holography has led to different versions such as near-field acoustic holography (NAH) and statistically optimal near-field acoustic holography (SONAH). For audio rendition, the wave field synthesis is the most related procedure. Atomic holography has evolved out of the development of the basic elements of atom optics. With the Fresnel diffraction lens and atomic mirrors atomic holography follows a natural step in the development of the physics (and applications) of atomic beams. Recent developments including atomic mirrors and especially ridged mirrors have provided the tools necessary for the creation of atomic holograms,[40] although such holograms have not yet been commercialized. [edit] Things often confused with holograms Effects produced by Lenticular printing and Video projection, and Pepper's Ghost are often confused with holograms.[41] In 2010, there was a series of concerts organized by Crypton Future Media which included Hatsune Miku, a singing synthesizer application and its female character, performing on stage as a "holographic" character.[42][43][44] This effect was actually achieved through a special method of rear projection against a semi-transparent screen. In 2011, in Beijing, apparel company Burberry produced the "Burberry Prorsum Autumn/Winter 2011 Hologram Runway Show", which included life size 2-D projections of models. The company's own video shows several centered and off-center shots of the main 2-dimensional projection screen, and all the 3-D effects stem from 2-D perspective. [45] The claim that holography was used was reported as fact in the trade media. [46]