There is always a point in history when science fiction becomes reality, and the holographic displays follow the tradition.

University of Arizona optical scientists have discovered a way to produce refreshable 3D images, and these don't need to be viewed with special eyewear, and it is apparently developed with the military's funds.

For this research, the UA College of Optical Sciences collaborated with Nitto Denko Technical Corp., which is an Oceanside, Calif., subsidiary of Nitto Denko, Japan.

According to Cellular News, their device basically consists of a special plastic film sandwiched between two pieces of glass, each coated with a transparent electrode. The images are "written" into the light-sensitive plastic, called a photorefractive polymer, using laser beams and an externally applied electric field. The scientists take pictures of an object or scene from many two-dimensional perspectives as they scan their object, and the holographic display assembles the two-dimensional perspectives into a three-dimensional picture.

The researchers also are working to write images even faster using pulsed 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," Tay said. "We envision this to be a life-size hologram. We could, for example, display an image of a whole human that would be the same size as the actual person."

Picture: How Stuff Works

Source: Cellular News