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holography

 
Dictionary: ho·log·raph·y   (hō-lŏg'rə-fē) pronunciation
n.
A method of producing a three-dimensional image of an object by recording on a photographic plate or film the pattern of interference formed by a split laser beam and then illuminating the pattern either with a laser or with ordinary light.

holographer ho·log'raph·er n.

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Method of recording or reproducing a three-dimensional image, or hologram, by means of a pattern of interference produced using a laser beam. To create a hologram, a beam of coherent light (a laser) is split; half the beam falls on a recording medium (such as a photographic plate) unaltered, and the other half is first reflected off the object to be imaged. The two beams together produce an interference pattern of stripes and whorls on the plate. The developed plate is the hologram. When light is shone on the hologram, a three-dimensional image of the original object is produced by the recorded interference pattern. Some holograms require laser light to reproduce the image; others may be viewed in ordinary white light. Holography was invented in 1947 by the Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor (1900 – 1979), who won a 1971 Nobel Prize for his invention.

For more information on holography, visit Britannica.com.

Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Holography
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A technique for recording, and later reconstructing, the amplitude and phase distributions of a coherent wave disturbance. Invented by Dennis Gabor in 1948, the process was originally envisioned as a possible method for improving the resolution of electron microscopes. While this original application has not proved feasible, the technique is widely used as a method for optical image formation, and in addition has been successfully used with acoustical and radio waves.

The technique is accomplished by recording the pattern of interference between the unknown “object” wave of interest and a known “reference” wave ( Fig. 1). In general, the object wave is generated by illuminating the (possibly three-dimensional) subject of concern with a highly coherent beam of light, such as supplied by a laser source. The waves reflected from the object strike a light-sensitive recording medium, such as photographic film or plate. Simultaneously a portion of the light is allowed to bypass the object, and is sent directly to the recording plane, typically by means of a mirror placed next to the object. Thus incident on the recording medium is the sum of the light from the object and a mutually coherent “reference” wave. See also Laser.

Recording a hologram.
Recording a hologram.

The photographic recording obtained is known as a hologram (meaning a “total recording”); this record generally bears no resemblance to the original object, but rather is a collection of many fine fringes which appear in rather irregular patterns. Nonetheless, when this photographic transparency is illuminated by coherent light, one of the transmitted wave components is an exact duplication of the original object wave ( Fig. 2). This wave component therefore appears to originate from the object (although the object has long since been removed) and accordingly generates a virtual image of it, which appears to an observer to exist in three-dimensional space behind the transparency. The image is truly three-dimensional in the sense that the observer's eyes must refocus to examine foreground and background, and indeed can “look behind” objects in the foreground simply by moving his or her head laterally.

Obtaining images from a hologram.
Obtaining images from a hologram.

Holography has been demonstrated to offer the capability of several unique kinds of interferometry. This capability is a consequence of the fact that holographic images are coherent; that is, they have well-defined amplitude and phase distributions. Any use of holography to achieve the superposition of two coherent images will result in a potential method of interferometry. See also Interferometry.

Optical memories for storing large volumes of binary data in the form of holograms have been developed for commercial use. Such a memory consists of an array of small holograms, each capable of reconstructing a different “page” of binary data. When one of these holograms is illuminated by coherent light, it generates a real image consisting of an array of bright or dark spots, each spot representing a binary digit. See also Computer storage technology.

There has been interest in the use of holography for purposes of display of three-dimensional images. Applications have been found in the field of advertising, and there is increased use of holography as a medium for artistic expression.

Microwave holography is microwave imaging by means of coherent continuous-wave electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range from 1 mm to 1 m. As a long-wavelength imaging modality, it differs from techniques which employ echo timing (for example, conventional radar) by its requirement for phase information. In this respect it resembles optical holography, from which it has departed significantly. The technique usually involves small-scale systems, that is, systems in which the effective data acquisition aperture is of the order of tens or hundreds of wavelengths. Microwave holographic imaging is characterized by high lateral-resolution capability in comparison with images obtained from echo timing. The natural image format of the data it presents to the human observer enhances its diagnostic potential. In particular, it conveniently produces phase imagery which increases further its diagnostic capability. See also Microwave; Radar.

Microwave holography is useful in applications where images of concealed structure are required. Microwave radiation penetrates a variety of dielectric media to a depth depending on the attenuation of a given wavelength in a particular medium. One such application is the mapping of subsurface pipes and cables. Plastic pipes as well as metal pipes can be imaged. Hence this noninvasive microwave technique has a diagnostic power greater than the normal metal detectors. See also Nondestructive evaluation.

The major limitation of the microwave holographic techniques is that the images produced are essentially two-dimensional. The reason is that the microwave wavelength is so long (104–106 times that of light) that the depth of focus of the microwave hologram is prohibitive. This disadvantage is overcome by employing a tomographic mode of imaging which exploits the ability of microwaves to penetrate many materials and thereby characterize their three-dimensional structure more accurately. Microwave holographic tomography requires holograms to be recorded from different views of the object and synthesized. See also Computerized tomography.


Modern Science: holography
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holography (hoh-LOG-ruh-fee)

A technique using lasers and photographic plates to produce three-dimensional images.

Photography Encyclopedia: holography
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Holography owes both its conception and the name ‘hologram’ to a paper written by Dennis Gabor in 1948, for which he was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize; but the first successful holograms were not made until 1961, soon after the invention of the laser. Before long, other workers such as Stephen Benton developed new techniques that extended the scope of holography.

Holography has three things in common with photography: it uses light energy; it employs a light-sensitive surface; and the result is a visible image. But there the resemblance ends. The light energy has to be the well-disciplined monochromatic beam of a laser; the light-sensitive surface needs a resolution much higher than that of a photographic film; and the final image is three dimensional.

In the making of a hologram there is no need for a lens. A hologram is the record of the shape of the wavefront reflected by the object. This contains information about the direction and distance of every point on the surface of the object relative to the light-sensitive material. Although the wavefronts are passing through this surface at the speed of light, their shape can be recorded by causing the object wavefront (or object beam) to interfere with an unmodulated beam (the reference beam) derived from the same light source as the object beam. This pattern is stationary, and can be recorded by any light-sensitive material having a resolution of 2, 000 mm-1 or better. If the pattern is recorded permanently (e.g. on a silver halide emulsion), the original object wavefront is recreated when the record is illuminated by the original reference beam. Each point on the hologram codes the wavefront as seen from that viewpoint, resulting in full three-dimensional parallax: it is as if the object itself were being viewed through a window.

There are two basic types of hologram. In the first type the object and reference beams fall on the recording material from the same side. The interference pattern consists of bars through the thickness of the sensitive material roughly perpendicular to its surface, like the slats of a venetian blind. The image must be reconstructed (‘replayed’) using a laser beam or (less effectively) a quasi-monochromatic source such as a filtered mercury arc; the image is viewed from the opposite side, as in a photographic transparency. This type of hologram is called a laser transmission hologram. In the other type of hologram the object and reference beams fall on the recording material from opposite sides. The interference pattern consists of sheets through the thickness of the sensitive material roughly parallel to its surface, like the pages of a book. When the hologram is illuminated with white light it reflects only the wavelength that matches the spacing of these interference planes. This type of hologram is called a white-light reflection hologram. A transmission hologram can produce a sharper and deeper image than a reflection hologram, but the latter is easier to display, as it can be mounted on a wall, replayed from the front by an ordinary white spotlight, and viewed like a photograph.

Both types of hologram are fairly simple to make using a laser pointer with the collimating optics removed or adjusted to give a divergent beam. Fig. 1 shows a simple arrangement for a basic transmission hologram. Fig. 2 shows an arrangement for a basic reflection hologram.

When the sensitive material is a silver halide emulsion it can be developed and fixed in the usual way; but the image is much brighter when the developed emulsion is bleached (rehalogenated) rather than fixed, so that the interference pattern is recorded as changes of refractive index rather than of density.

There are a number of different types of hologram within the two main categories. Most of these make use of a transfer process analogous to photographic copying. The primary holographic image is used as the object for a second hologram. If a primary (or master) transmission hologram is reversed (‘flipped’) in the replay beam, the image becomes real rather than virtual, and can be projected onto a second light-sensitive surface, where it acts as the object beam for a second (transfer) hologram. The final image can be behind, in front of, or (most commonly) straddling the plane of the final hologram.

The main varieties of hologram are:

1. Multi-image holograms. Several images can be seen successively by changing the viewpoint or illuminating light, or by tilting the hologram. This effect is achieved by making several exposures using different reference beam angles, or by transferring several master holograms side by side onto a single final transfer hologram.
2. Rainbow holograms. These are transmission holograms viewable by white light, made by transfer with the master hologram masked down to a narrow horizontal slit. This has the effect of replacing the vertical parallax of the final image with a holographically generated diffraction grating; thus the viewer sees the image through part of a projected spectrum. There are several sophisticated versions. One uses a geometry that collapses the spectrum on itself, resulting in an uncoloured image; others combine different reference angles in a multi-exposure transfer hologram that gives multicoloured and/or multiple images.
3. Focused-image holograms. The optical image formed by a lens is used as object beam. This principle can be used to form holographic images in a modified conventional camera. The technique can be combined with the slit principle to produce one-step rainbow holograms.
4. Embossed holograms. The final transfer hologram is made on photoresist, so that the interference pattern is formed in ridges and can be reproduced by mechanical hot stamping from a metal replica. This is possible only with a transmission hologram, and embossed holograms are rainbow holograms backed with a reflective layer. Many embossed images are not true holograms, but are dot matrix diffraction images produced dot by dot using two focused laser beams set at angles under computer control.
5. Holographic stereograms. These represent the ultimate in multi-image transfer holograms. A series of up to 100 images produced by a moving camera (or generated by a computer) is recorded as a set of adjacent narrow holograms 1-2 mm wide on a continuous length of holographic film. The whole series is then transferred holographically to give a single final image which has full horizontal parallax. This system has the advantages of not needing a laser for its origination, and of being able to produce an image of any required size. By employing multicolour rainbow geometry it is possible to replicate a series of colour transparencies in true colour. Stereograms can also be used for brief animation sequences.
6. Holographic (or diffractive) optical elements. A hologram of a lens or an optical mirror behaves exactly like the original lens or mirror. It is thus a holographic optical element (HOE). There are many ways of making HOEs using laser light; and as the interference patterns are comparatively simple it is also possible to compute these and engrave them on a glass or plastics substrate under computer control to produce diffractive optical elements (DOEs). The main advantage of HOEs and DOEs is that a large number of elements can be superimposed on a single surface, an impossibility with conventional optical systems. The disadvantage is that they are highly dispersive, and can therefore be used effectively only with monochromatic light.
7. Holographic interferograms. If a hologram is doubly exposed, and between the two exposures the object is slightly distorted, in the resulting image the distortion is contoured by secondary (moiré) interference fringes at half-wavelength intervals. This property makes holography an important tool in the analysis of stress and vibration.

Display and art holography

Although the main applications of holography today are in security foils, information storage, and diffractive optical systems, the technique has a healthy life in the world of fine art. Many holograms are now in public collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and in private collections such as those of Matthias Lauk in Pulheim, Germany, and Jonathan Ross in London.

Holography was first taken up as an art medium in the late 1960s and 1970s by a few professional artists such as Margaret Benyon (b. 1940) in Britain, Paula Dawson (b. 1954) in Australia, and Harriet Casdin-Silver (b. 1925), Anaït Stevens, Ruben Nuñez (b. 1930 in Vefnnezuela), and Rudi Berkhout (b. 1941 in the Netherlands) in the USA. Some well-known artists such as Salvador Dalí dabbled in it; others, like the British public artist Alexander (b. 1927), adopted it as an important element of their creative kit. The world's largest permanent collection of art holograms, formerly held by the now defunct Museum of Holography in New York, is now housed in a special section of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Holograms offer a number of unique qualities for the artist: they can be three dimensional; they can be multi-image or animated; they can offer a range of dazzling colours that change with viewing position; they can include optical effects and illusion, including pseudoscopic (inside-out) images and real images that hang in front of the hologram; or they can be totally abstract constructions of moving light.




— Graham Saxby

See also interferometry; leith, Emmett; denisyuk, yuri.

Bibliography

  • Benyon, M., ‘Holography as an Art Medium’, Leonardo, 6 (1973).
  • Hariharan, P., Optical Holography: Principles, Techniques and Applications (2nd edn. 1996).
  • Caulfield, H. J., Handbook of Optical Holography (2nd edn. 1997).
  • Saxby, G., Practical Holography (3rd edn. 2003)
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: holography
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holography (hŏlŏg'rəfē, hō-), method of reproducing a three-dimensional image of an object by means of light wave patterns recorded on a photographic plate or film. Holography is sometimes called lensless photography because no lenses are used to form the image. The plate or film with the recorded wave patterns is called a hologram. The light used to make a hologram must be coherent, i.e. of a single wavelength or frequency and with all the waves in phase. (A coherent beam of light can be produced by a laser.) Before reaching the object, the beam is split into two parts; one (the reference beam) is recorded directly on the photographic plate and the other is reflected from the object to be photographed and is then recorded. Since the two parts of the beam arriving at the photographic plate have traveled by different paths and are no longer necessarily coherent, they create an interference pattern, exposing the plate at points where they arrive in phase and leaving the plate unexposed where they arrive out of phase (nullifying each other). The pattern on the plate is a record of the waves as they are reflected from the object, recorded with the aid of the reference beam. When this hologram is later illuminated with coherent light of the same frequency as that used to form it, a three-dimensional image of the object is produced; it can even be photographed from various angles. This technique of image formation is known as wave front reconstruction. Dennis Gabors, a British scientist who in 1948 developed the wave theory of light (itself first suggested by Christopher Huygens in the late 17th cent.) can be viewed as the father of theoretical holography. However, no adequate source of coherent light was available until the invention of the laser in 1960. Holography using laser light was developed during the early 1960s and has had several applications. In research, holography has been combined with microscopy to extend studies of very small objects; it has also been used to study the instantaneous properties of large collections of atmospheric particles. In industry, holography has been applied to stress and vibrational analysis. Color holograms have been developed, formed using three separate exposures with laser beams of each of the primary colors (see color). Another new technique is acoustical holography, in which the object is irradiated with a coherent beam of ultrasonic waves (see sound; ultrasonics); the resulting interference pattern is recorded by means of microphones to form a hologram, and the photographic plate thus produced is viewed by means of laser light to give a visible three-dimensional image.

Bibliography

See G. W. Stroke, An Introduction to Coherent Optics and Holography (2d ed. 1969); T. Okoshi, Three-Dimensional Imaging Techniques (1976); N. Abramson, The Making and Evaluation of Holograms (1981); J. E. Kasper and S. A. Feller, The Complete Book of Holograms (1987).


Science Q&A: What is holography?
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Hungarian-born scientist Dennis Gabor invented the technique of holography (image in the round) in 1947, but it was not until 1961 when Emmet Leith and Juris Upatnieks produced the modern hologram using a laser, which gave the hologram the strong, pure light it needed. Three dimensions are seen around an object because light waves are reflected from all around it, overlapping and interfering with each other. This interaction of these collections of waves, called wave fronts, give an object its light, shade, and depth. A camera cannot capture all the information in these wave fronts, so it produces two-dimensional objects. Holography captures the depth of an object by measuring the distance light has traveled from the object.

A simple hologram is made by splitting a laser light into two beams through a silvered mirror. One beam, called the object beam, lights up the subject of the hologram. These light waves are reflected onto a photographic plate. The other beam, called a reference beam, is reflected directly onto the plate itself. The two beams coincide to create, on the plate, an "interference pattern." After the plate is developed, a laser light is projected through this developed hologram at the same angle as the original reference beam, but from the opposite direction. The pattern scatters the light to create a projected, three-dimensional, ghost-like image of the original object in space.

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Electronics Dictionary: holography
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The science dealing with three-dimensional optical recording.


Wikipedia: Holography
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Identigram as a security element in a German Identity card (Personalausweis)

Holography (from the Greek, ὅλος-hólos whole + γραφή-grafē writing, drawing) is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded. 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 recorded image (hologram) appear three dimensional.

The technique of holography can also be used to optically store, retrieve, and process information. While holography is commonly used to display static 3-D pictures, it is not yet possible to generate arbitrary scenes by a holographic volumetric display.

Contents

Overview

Hologram Artwork in MIT Museum

Holography was discovered in 1947 by Hungarian physicist Dennis Gabor (Hungarian name: Gábor Dénes) (1900–1979),[1] work for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971. It was made possible by pioneering work in the field of physics by other scientists like Mieczysław Wolfke who resolved technical issues that previously made advancements impossible. 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 holograms that recorded 3D objects were made in 1962 by Yuri Denisyuk in the Soviet Union[2] and by Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks at University of Michigan, USA.[3] Advances in photochemical processing techniques to produce high-quality display holograms were achieved by Nicholas J. Phillips.[4]

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 or other monochromatic sources 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 aluminium 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.

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 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.

Theory

Holographic recording process

Though holography is often referred to as 3D photography, this is a misconception. A better analogy is sound recording where the sound field is encoded in such a way that it can later be reproduced. In holography, 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 is an apparently random pattern of varying intensity which is the hologram. It can be shown that if the hologram is illuminated by the original reference beam, a light field is diffracted by the reference beam which is identical to the light field which was scattered by the object or objects. Thus, someone looking into the hologram 'sees' the objects even though it may no longer be present. There are a variety of recording materials which can be used, including photographic film.

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 simplistic, but is accurate enough to provide an understanding of how the holographic process works.

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. Light rays travelling through it are bent at an angle determined by λ, the wavelength of the light and d, the distance between the slits and is given by sinθ = λ/d.

A very simple hologram can be made by superimposing two plane waves from the same light source. One (the reference beam) hits the photographic plate normally and the other one (the object beam) hits the plate at an angle θ. The relative phase between the two beams varies across the photographic plate as 2π y sinθ/λ where y is the distance along the photographic plate. The two beams interfere with one another to form an interference pattern. The relative phase changes by 2π at intervals of d = λ/sinθ so the spacing of the interference fringes is given by d. Thus, the relative phase of object and reference beam is encoded as the maxima and minima of the fringe pattern.

When the photographic plate is developed, the fringe pattern acts as a diffraction grating and when the reference beam is incident upon the photographic plate, it is partly diffracted into the same angle θ at which the original object beam was incident. Thus, the object beam has been reconstructed. The diffraction grating created by the two waves interfering has reconstructed the "object beam" and it is therefore a hologram as defined above.

Point sources

Holographic reconstruction process

A slightly more complicated hologram can be made using a point source of light as object beam and a plane wave as reference beam to illuminate the photographic plate. An interference pattern is formed which in this case is in the form of curves of decreasing separation with increasing distance from the centre.

The photographic plate is developed giving a complicated pattern which can be considered to be made up of a diffraction pattern of varying spacing. When the plate is illuminated by the reference beam alone, it is diffracted by the grating into different angles which depend on the local spacing of the pattern on the plate. It can be shown that the net effect of this is to reconstruct the object beam, so that it appears that light is coming from a point source behind the plate, even when the source has been removed. The light emerging from the photographic plate is identical to the light that emerged from the point source that used to be there. An observer looking into the plate from the other side will "see" a point source of light whether the original source of light is there or not.

This sort of hologram is effectively a concave lens, since it "converts" a plane wavefront into a divergent wavefront. It will also increase the divergence of any wave which is incident on it in exactly the same way as a normal lens does. Its focal length is the distance between the point source and the plate.

Complex objects

To record a hologram of a complex object, a laser beam is first split into two separate beams of light using a beamsplitter of half-silvered glass or a birefringent material. One beam illuminates the object, reflecting its image onto the recording medium as it scatters the beam. The second (reference) beam illuminates the recording medium directly.

According to diffraction theory, each point in the object acts as a point source of light. Each of these point sources interferes with the reference beam, giving rise to an interference pattern. The resulting pattern is the sum of a large number (strictly speaking, an infinite number) of point source + reference beam interference patterns.

When the object is no longer present, the holographic plate is illuminated by the reference beam. Each point source diffraction grating will diffract part of the reference beam to reconstruct the wavefront from its point source. These individual wavefronts add together to reconstruct the whole of the object beam.

The viewer perceives a wavefront that is identical to the scattered wavefront of the object illuminated by the reference beam, so that it appears to him or her that the object is still in place. This image is known as a "virtual" image as it is generated even though the object is no longer there. The direction of the light source seen illuminating the virtual image is that of the original illuminating beam.

This explains, albeit in somewhat simple terms, how transmission holograms work. Other holograms, such as rainbow and Denisyuk holograms, are more complex but have same principles.

Mathematical model

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 be UO + UR. The energy of the combined beams is proportional to the square of magnitude of the electric wave:

|U_O + U_R|^2=U_O U_R^*+|U_R|^2+|U_O|^2+ U_O^*U_R

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

T=k[U_O U_R^*+|U_R|^2+|U_O|^2+ U_O^*U_R]

where k is a constant. When the developed plate is illuminated by the reference beam, the light transmitted through the plate, UH is

U_H=TU_R=k[U_O U_R^*+|U_R|^2+|U_O|^2+ U_O^*U_R]U_R=k[U_O+|U_R|^2U_R+|U_O|^2U_R+ U_O^*U_R^2]

It can be seen that UH has four terms. The first of these is kUO, since URUR* is equal to one, and this is the re-constructed object beam. The second term represents the reference beam whose amplitude has been modifed by UR2. The third also represent the reference beam which has had its amplitude modifed by UO2; this modification will cause the reference beam to be diffracted around its central direction. The fourth term is know 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.

Early holograms had both the object and reference beams illuminating the recording medium normally, which meant that all the four beams emerging from the hologram were superimposed on one another. The off-axis hologram was developed by Leith and Upatnieks to overcome this problem. The object and reference beams are incident at well-separated angles onto the holographic recording medium and the virtual, real and reference wavefronts all emerge at different angles, enabling the re-constructed object beam to be imaged clearly.

Viewing the hologram

Photograph of a hologram in front of a diffuse light background - 8x8 mm

The picture on the right is a photograph, taken against a diffuse light background, of a hologram recorded on photographic emulsion. The area shown is about 8 mm by 8 mm. The holographic recording is the random variation in intensity which is an objective speckle pattern, and not the regular lines which are likely to be 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 than it is to identify the music on an audio CD by looking at the structure of the CD surface. When this hologram is illuminated by a divergent laser beam, the viewer will see the object used to make it (in this case, a toy van) because the light is diffracted by the hologram to reconstruct the light which was scattered from the object.

When one looks at a scene, each eye captures a portion of the light scattered from the scene, and the lens of the eye forms an image of the scene on the retina, in which light from each angular position is focused to a specific angular position in the image plane. Since the hologram reconstructs the whole of the scattered light field that was incident on the hologram, the viewer sees the same image whether it is derived from the light field scattered from the object, or the reconstructed light field produced by the hologram, and is unable to tell whether he or she is looking at the real or the virtual object. If the viewer moves about, the object will appear to move in exactly the same way whether he or she is looking at the original light field or the reconstructed light field. If there are several objects in the scene, they will exhibit parallax. If the viewer is using both eyes (stereoscopic vision), he or she will get depth information when viewing the hologram in exactly the same way as when he or she is viewing the real scene.

It should be clear from this why a hologram is not a 3D photograph. A photograph records an image of the recorded scene from a single viewpoint, which is defined by the position of the camera lens. The hologram is not an image, but an encoding system which enables the scattered light field to be reconstructed. Images can then be formed from any point in the reconstructed beam either with a camera or by eye. 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.

Since each point in the hologram contains light from the whole of the original scene, the whole scene can, in principle, be reconstructed from an arbitrarily small part of the hologram. To demonstrate this concept, the hologram can be broken into small pieces and the entire object can still be seen from each small piece. If one envisions the hologram as a "window" on the object, then each small piece of hologram is just a part of the window from which it can still be viewed, even if the rest of the window is blocked off.

One does, however, lose resolution as the size of the hologram is decreased—the image becomes "fuzzier." This is a result of diffraction and arises in the same way as the resolution of an imaging system is ultimately limited by diffraction where the resolution becomes coarser as the lens or lens aperture diameter decreases.

Viewing and authoring

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 it should be noted that 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 the fringe patterns and some of the more common media used are listed below. The spacing of the fringes depends on the angle between object and reference beam. For example, if this angle is 45°, and the wavelength of the light is 0.5μm, the fringe spacing is about 0.7μm or 1300 lines/mm. A working hologram can be obtained even if all the fringes are not resolved, but the resolution of the image is reduced as the resolution of the recording medium reduces.

Mechanical stability is also very important when making a hologram. Any relative phase change between the object and reference beams due to vibration or air movement will cause the fringes on the recording medium to move, and if the phase changes is greater than π, the fringe pattern is averaged out, and no holographic recording is obtained. Recording time can be several seconds or more, and given that a phase change of π is equivalent to a movement of λ/2 this is quite a stringent stability requirement.

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. It should be noted that 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.

To reconstruct the object exactly from a transmission hologram, the reference beam must have the same wavelength and curvature, and must illuminate the hologram at the same angle as the original reference beam (i.e. only the phase can be changed). Departure from any of these conditions will give a distorted reconstruction. While nearly all holograms are recorded using lasers, a narrow-band lamp or even sunlight is enough to recognize the reconstructed image.

The reconstructed hologram is enlarged if the light used to reconstruct the hologram has a higher wavelength. This initially generated some interest since it seemed to 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.[5] This effect can be demonstrated using a light source which emits several different frequencies.[6]

Exact reconstruction is achieved in holographic interferometry where the holographically reconstructed wavefront interferes with the live wavefront, to map out any displacement of the live object, and gives a null fringe if the object has not moved.

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 λ/2.

The recording medium has to convert the interference pattern into an optical element which modifies either the amplitude or the phase of a light beam which is incident upon it. These are known as amplitude and phase holograms respectively. In amplitude holograms the modulation is in the varying absorption of the light by the hologram, as in a developed photographic emulsion which is less or more absorptive depending on the intensity of the light which illuminated it. In phase holograms, the optical distance (i.e., the refractive index or in some cases the thickness) in the material is modulated.

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 of typically some μm thickness). 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 mm of the gratings. The required exposure is for a long exposure. Short exposure times (less than 1/1000th of second, such as with a pulsed laser) require a higher exposure due to reciprocity failure.

General properties of recording materials for holography. Source:[7]
Material Reusable Processing Type of hologram Max. efficiency Required exposure [mJ/cm²] Resolution limit [mm−1]
Photographic emulsions No Wet Amplitude 6% 0.001–0.1 1,000–10,000
Phase (bleached) 60%
Dichromated gelatin No Wet Phase 100% 10 10,000
Photoresists No Wet Phase 33% 10 3,000
Photothermoplastics Yes Charge and heat Phase 33% 0.01 500–1,200
Photopolymers No Post exposure Phase 100% 1–1,000 2,000–5,000
Photochromics Yes None Amplitude 2% 10–100 >5,000
Photorefractives Yes None Phase 100% 0.1–50,000 2,000–10,000

Mass replication of holograms

A hologram on a Nokia mobile phone battery. This is intended to show the battery is 'original Nokia' and not a fake or an imitation.

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.[8] 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.

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 aluminium is usually added on the hologram recording layer.

Applications

Data storage

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 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 1024×1024-bit resolution. With the right type of media (probably polymers rather than something like LiNbO3), this would result in about 1 gigabit per second writing speed. Read speeds can surpass this and experts believe 1-terabit per second readout is possible.

In 2005, companies such as Optware and Maxell have produced a 120 mm disc that uses a holographic layer to store data to a potential 3.9 TB (terabyte), 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.

Security

Security holograms are very difficult to forge because they are replicated from a master hologram which 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, Canadian dollar 5/10/20/50/100 notes, Euro 5/10/20/50/100/200/500 notes, South Korean won 5000/10000/50000 notes, Japanese yen 5000/10000 notes, etc. They are also used in credit and bank cards as well as Books, DVDs, Sports Equipment.

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 scientist.

Salvador Dalí 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 Dalí holograms had been preceded by the holographic art exhibition which 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.[9]

During the 1970s a number of arts studios and schools were established, each with their particular approach to holography. Notably there was the San Francisco School of holography established by Llyod Cross, The Museum of Holography in New York founded by Rosemary (Possie) H. Jackson, the Royal College of Art in London and the Lake Forrest College Symposiums organised by Tung Jeong (T.J) [1]. None of these studios still exist, however there is the Center for the Holographic Arts in New York [2] and the HOLOcenter in Seoul [3] which offer artists a place to create and exhibit work.

A small but active group of artists use holography as their main medium and many more artists integrate holographic elements into their work.[who?]

The MIT Museum [4] and Jonathan Ross [5] both have extensive collections of holography and on-line catalogues of art holograms.

Hobbyist use

“Peace Within Reach” a Denisyuk DCG hologram by amateur Dave Battin.

Since the beginning of holography, experimenters have explored the uses of holography. 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 dampen 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 5mw 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 Blythe responded with the G307 formulation of DCG to increase the speed and sensitivity to these new lasers.

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 Blythe has published very accurate methods for making film in a small lab or garage.

A small group of amateurs are even constructing their own pulsed lasers to make holograms of moving objects.[10]

Holographic interferometry

Holographic interferometry (HI)[11][12] is a technique which 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 visualised and analysed. 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.

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.[13]

Dynamic holography

In static holography, recording, developing and reconstructing occur sequentially and a permanent hologram is produced.

There also exist holographic materials which do not need the developing process and can record a hologram in a very short time. This allows 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 (terabit/s), since the operation is performed in parallel on a whole image. This compensates the fact that the recording time, which is in the order of a µs, 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. But remember that in optics, addition and Fourier transform are already easily performed in linear materials, the second simply by a lens. This enables some applications like a device that compares images in an optical way.[14]

The search for novel nonlinear optical materials for dynamic holography is an active area of research. The most common materials are photorefractive crystals, but also 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).

Non-optical applications

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.[15] The principle of electron holography can also be applied to interference lithography.[16]

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,[17] although such holograms have not yet been commercialized.

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.

See also

References

  1. ^ Gabor, Dennis (1949), "Microscopy by recorded wavefronts", Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) 197 (1051): 454-487, doi:10.1098/rspa.1949.0075 
  2. ^ Denisyuk, Yuri N. (1962). "On the reflection of optical properties of an object in a wave field of light scattered by it". Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 144 (6): 1275–1278. 
  3. ^ Leith, E.N.; Upatnieks, J. (1962). "Reconstructed wavefronts and communication theory". J. Opt. Soc. Am. 52 (10): 1123–1130. 
  4. ^ N. J. Phillips and D. Porter, "An advance in the processing of holograms," Journal of Physics E: Scientific Instruments (1976) p. 631
  5. ^ Scaling Holographic Images, http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/optmod/holog.html#c5
  6. ^ Hologram Scaling with Wavelength http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/optmod/scaleh.html#c1
  7. ^ Lecture Holography and optical phase conjugation held at ETH Zürich by Prof. G. Montemezzani in 2002
  8. ^ Canadian Mint annual report for 2000, mentioning holographic coins
  9. ^ Source: http://holophile.com/history.htm, retrieved December 2005
  10. ^ Jeff Blythe's Film Formulations
  11. ^ Powell RL & Stetson KA, 1965, J. Opt. Soc. Am., 55, 1593-8
  12. ^ Jones R and Wykes C, Holographic and Speckle Interferometry, 1989, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 34417 4
  13. ^ Y.Kuznetsova; A.Neumann, S.R.Brueck (2007). "Imaging interferometric microscopy–approaching the linear systems limits of optical resolution". Optics Express 15: 6651–6663. doi:10.1364/OE.15.006651. http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?id=134719. 
  14. ^ R. Ryf et al. High-frame-rate joint Fourier-transform correlator based on Sn2P2S6 crystal, Optics Letters 26, 1666-1668 (2001)
  15. ^ R. E. Dunin-Borkowski et al., Micros. Res. and Tech. vol. 64, pp. 390-402 (2004)
  16. ^ K. Ogai et al., Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 32, pp.5988-5992 (1993)
  17. ^ F.Shimizu; J.Fujita (March 2002). "Reflection-Type Hologram for Atoms". PRL (American Physical Society) 88 (12): 123201. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.123201. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v88/i12/e123201. 

Further reading

  • Hariharan, P (1996), Optical Holography: principles, techniques, and applications, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521439657 
  • Lasers and holography: an introduction to coherent optics W. E. Kock, Dover Publications (1981), ISBN 978-0486240411
  • Principles of holography H. M. Smith, Wiley (1976), ISBN 978-0471803416
  • G. Berger et al., Digital Data Storage in a phase-encoded holograhic memory system: data quality and security, Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 4988, p. 104-111 (2003)
  • Holographic Visions: A History of New Science Sean F. Johnston, Oxford University Press (2006), ISBN 0-19-857122-4

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