To have a better understanding of applications – military, industrial or medical – it helps to acquire a holistic perspective. This is what University of Arizona (UA) scientists hope to achieve from the first updatable 3-D displays with memory that have ever been developed. A unique holographic device assembles pictures taken from a 2-D perspective into a 3-D picture. Viewed without special eye gear, these holographic displays can be erased and rewritten within minutes.
The device created by the UA scientists consists of a photorefractive polymer placed in between two pieces of glass, with each being coated with a transparent electrode. The images are captured onto the light-sensitive plastic using laser beams and an externally applied electric field. Two-dimensional pictures are taken of an object or scene with the holographic display showing the pictures as 3-D pictures.
“Holography has been around for decades, but holographic displays are really one of the first practical applications of the technique,” says UA optical scientist Savas Tay. The prototype (4 inches x 4 inches) display now comes only in the color red. But researchers are optimistic of developing larger, full-color displays.
The researchers are working on displaying the images at a faster rate using pulsated lasers. “If you can write faster with a pulsed laser, then you can write larger holograms in the same amount of time it now takes to write smaller ones,” says Tay. “We envision this to be a lifesize hologram. We could, for example, display an image of a whole human that would be the same size as the actual person.”
Tay also highlights the importance of this application in the medical field. “The huge amount of data that is created in three dimensions is still being displayed on twodimensional devices, either on a computer screen or on a piece of paper. A great amount of data is lost by displaying it this way. So I think when we develop larger, fullcolor 3-D holograms, every hospital in the world will want one.”
Source: Pioneering Minds