Japanese engineers at TUAT have announced that they have created a real holographic video for the first time. It can be compared to the holographic projection made by the RD2D robot from the Star Wars saga.
In their work, they used so-called metasurfaces, with which you can control light and achieve such a level of detail that allows you to create real three-dimensional holographic images that will be visible from virtually any point of view.
Today, there are widespread “static holograms” with a limited viewing angle, as well as “fake holograms”, which can be seen at concerts of pop stars, for the creation of which optical effects are used.
The researchers took inspiration from the first cinema projectors in the 19th century to create their animated hologram. They used metasurfaces – materials only a few nanometers thick through which light can be manipulated. Scientists have printed 48 rectangular “metasurface” frames made mostly of gold, which refract the laser beam in such a way that they get a real three-dimensional picture, which seems to be “suspended” in the air.
Each frame is slightly different from the other and the holographic film is played back at 30 frames per second. As a pilot video, the researchers captured an image of the rotating Earth.
The scientists used a helium-neon laser that creates a reddish image. Therefore, in the future, engineers are faced with the task of making a full-fledged color picture. It took about six hours to print 48 frames. And to make, for example, a six-minute film, it will take 800 hours to print holographic frames.
