In the journal Nature, researchers at MIT’s Media Lab report a new approach to generating holograms that could lead to color holographic-video displays that are much more inexpensive to manufacture than today’s experimental, monochromatic displays. The same technique could also increase the resolution of conventional 2-D displays.
Using the new technique, Daniel Smalley, a graduate student in the Media Lab and first author on the new paper, is building a prototype color holographic-video display whose resolution is roughly that of a standard-definition TV and which can update video images 30 times a second, fast enough to produce the illusion of motion. The heart of the display is an optical chip, resembling a microscope slide, that Smalley built, using only MIT facilities, for about $10. Continue reading this article on MIT News. Photo by Daniel Smalley