Holography

For other uses, see Holography (disambiguation).

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

Holography (from the Greek, όλος-hòlòs whole + γραφή-grafè 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 is if the object
were still present, thus making the recorded image (hologram) appear three
dimensional. Holograms can also be made using other types of waves.

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
[hide]

• 1 Overview
• 2 Theory
o 2.1 Interference and diffraction
 2.1.1 Plane wavefronts
 2.1.2 Point sources
 2.1.3 Complex objects
o 2.2 Mathematical model
• 3 Viewing the hologram
• 4 Viewing and authoring
• 5 Holographic recording media
• 6 Mass replication of holograms
 • 7 Applications
o 7.1 Data storage
o 7.2 Security
o 7.3 Art
o 7.4 Hobbyist use
o 7.5 Holographic interferometry
o 7.6 Interferometric microscopy
o 7.7 Dynamic holography
o 7.8 Non-optical applications

[edit] Overview

Hologram Artwork in MIT Museum

Holography was invented 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. The British Thomson-Houston company filed a patent in
December 1947(patent GB685286), but the field 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 in 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 rather than by lasers or other monochromatic
sources. 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—typically used by the
millions in DVD recorders and other applications, but 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 re-constructed. The diffraction grating
created by the two waves interfering has reconstructed the "object beam" and it is
therefore a hologram as defined above.

[edit] 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 it to re-construct 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.

[edit] Complex objects

For making a hologram of a complex object, the laser beam is split in two by the
beam splitter. One beam illuminates the object which then scatters light onto the
recording medium. 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 hologram is illuminated by the reference
beam. Each point source diffraction grating will diffract part of the reference beam
to re-construct the wavefront from its point source. These individual wavefronts add
together to recontstruct the whole of the object beam.

The viewer perceives a wavefront which is identical to the wavefront scattered by

the object, 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.

This explains, albeit in somewhat simplistic terms, how transmission holograms

work. Other holograms, such as rainbow and Denisyuk holgrams, are somewhat
more complex but the principles are the same

[edit] 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:

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

where k is a constant. When the developed plate is illuminated by the reference

beam, the light transmitted through the plate, UH is

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 holgram 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.

[edit] Viewing the hologram

Photograph of a hologram in front of a diffuse light background - 8x8mm

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
8mmx8mm. 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 a gramophone record by
looking at the structure of the tracks. 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 re-construct 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 hololgram 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 re-constructed from a single point in 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.

[edit] 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 45o, 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 re-construct 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. Any slight departure from any of
these conditions will give a distorted re-construction, and if the difference between
the reconstruction and original reference beam is too great, no re-construction is
obtained.

The reconstructed hologram would be enlarged if the light used to reconstruct the
hologram had 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 demostrated using a light source which emits several different
frequencies. [6]

Exact re-construction is achieved in holographic interferometry where the

holographically re-constructed 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.

[edit] 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]

Required Resolution
Type of Max.
Material Reusable Processing exposure limit [mm-
hologram efficiency
[mJ/cm²] 1]
 Amplitude 6%
Photographic 1,000–
No Wet 0.001–0.1
emulsions 10,000
Phase
60%
(bleached)

Dichromated
No Wet Phase 100% 10 10,000
gelatin

Photoresists No Wet Phase 33% 10 3,000

Photothermoplastic Charge
Yes Phase 33% 0.01 500–1,200
s and heat

Post 2,000–
Photopolymers No Phase 100% 1–1,000
exposure 5,000

Photochromics Yes None Amplitude 2% 10–100 >5,000

0.1– 2,000–
Photorefractives Yes None Phase 100%
50,000 10,000

It is also possible to make holographic recordings using digital cameras - see digital
holography[8]

[edit] 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 cheaper 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.[9] 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.

[edit] Applications
[edit] Data storage

Main article: Holographic memory

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
denser 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.

[edit] Security

Main article: Security hologram

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 notes, Japanese
yen 5000/10000 notes, etc. They are also used in credit and bank cards as well as
quality products.

[edit] 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 most notorious 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.[10]

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).
None of these studios still exist, however there is the Center for the Holographic Arts
in New York [1] and the HOLOcenter in Seoul [2] which offer artists a place to
create and exhibit work.

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

The MIT Museum [3] and Jonathan Ross [4] both have extensive collections of
holography and on-line catalogues of art holograms.

[edit] 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
(invented by Jerry Pethic) 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 it took the cost for a 5mw laser from $1200 to $5. 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, Methelene 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.[11]

[edit] Holographic interferometry

Main article: holographic interferometry

Holographic interferometry (HI)[12][13] 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

[edit] Interferometric microscopy

Main article: 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.[14]

[edit] 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.[15]

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).

[edit] 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.[16] The principle of electron holography can also be
applied to interference lithography.[17]
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,[18]
although such holograms have not yet been commercialized.