Laser R Vasanth

HOLOGRAPHY

1 Hologram:
Holography is a method of recording and displaying a three-dimensional image of an ob-
ject, usually using coherent radiation from a laser and photographic plates without using
lenses or camera. This word hologram consists of two Greek words holos (means whole)
and gamma (means a letter) the hologram means the whole message. This word was in-
vented by the Hungarian born British Nobel laureate Dr. Dennis Gabor who also invented
the technique of holography. Gabor developed holography in 1947 to improve the elec-
tron microscope, which views and photographs objects with a probing beam of electrons.
Holography woks with any waves electron, sound, or light. To appreciate holography with
light, recall how a camera works. The camera film records the intensity pattern of light
scattered from your face. But if there is no lens, that pattern of scattered light is uniform
and without details. Here a lens focuses light patterns to match the shape of the objects
that scatter them.
In conventional photography, a photograph represents a two dimensional recording of
a three dimension object and the photographic film records the amplitude or intensity of
the reflected light from the object. In the case of holography, both the amplitude and
phase of the wave are recorded on the photographic film. This is made possible by using a
coherent light. Further, it records the three-dimensional character of a three dimensional
object on the photographic film without using any lens or camera. The invention of highly
coherent light such as laser in 1960, E.N. Leith and J. Upatrieks using a laser succeeded
in performing experiment on holography. In the case of ordinary photography, ordinary
light which is incoherent light falls on the photographic plate, the eye is able to see only
a two-dimension image of the object. Here, in holography, we shall discuss a radically
different concept in photographic optics giving a full three dimensional image including
hidden back side of the object. This is a three dimensional lensless method of photography
which records the amplitude and phase of the light wave using interferometric techniques.
Holography is a process by which the image of an object can be recorded by the wave-
front construction. It does not record the image of the object on the photographic film, but
records the phases and amplitudes of the light waves themselves. The photographic record
of light waves thus produced is called hologram. Hologram does not bear any resemblance
to the original object. It has all the information about the object that is contained in an
ordinary photograph plus some additional information that is not contained in the ordinary
photograph because it cannot be recorded in ordinary photography. This some additional
information when reproduced, gives rise to a three dimensional image. This image is
reconstructed by placing the hologram in a laser beam; both a real and a virtual image are
formed in depth. The formation of image from a hologram in complete resemblance to the
original object is called the reconstruction process. It is not essential that the illumination
of original object and the illumination of the hologram used for the reconstruction should
have the same wavelengths. Different wavelength will alter the magnification of the image.

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Laser R Vasanth

But, it is necessary that the shape of the wave for the two illuminations as mentioned
should be same. When the viewers eye is moved from side to side, the rear parts of the
three-dimenional scene of the image are seen to move, relative to the more distant parts.
This effect called parallax is present in holography [Parallax is defined as an apparent
displacement of a distant object (with respect to a more distant background) when viewed
by the observer from two different positions. Such a parallax is not present in ordinary
photograph. The theory of holography is mathematically complicated, but the essentials
can be explained and understood from physical arguments.
Holography is a two-step process of optical imagery (i.e. of image formation), namely,
Construction of Hologram: An object illuminated by coherent light is made to
produce interference fringes in a photosensitive medium, such as photographic emulsion.
Reconstruction of Hologram:
In this step, the hologram is illuminated by laser light of the same wavelength. The
reillumination of the developed interference pattern in the hologram produces a three-
dimensional image of the original object.

1.1 Construction of Hologram:

Figure 1: Example of a simple holographic recording set-up. The path lengths from the
beamsplitter to the plate via the object and via the mirror are approximately equal and
the angle between object and reference waves at the plate is fairly small.

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Figure 2: Formation and reconstruction of the hologram of a point object: (a) spherical
wave from the object interferes with plane reference wave; (b) fringes recorded on the
photographic plate.

The experimental set-up is quite simple (Fig. 1). A spatially coherent laser beam is
divided, either in wavefront or amplitude, so that one part falls directly on a photographic
plate, and the other falls on the object to be recorded, which scatters light onto the same
plate. The two waves, called the reference wave and the object wave respectively,
interfere and the interference pattern is recorded by the plate. It is necessary to reduce
relative movements of the various components to amplitudes much less than one wavelength
during the exposure to avoid blurring the interference fringes.
The process can be described in general terms by considering the hologram as analogous
to a diffraction grating. Suppose that we photograph the hologram of a point scatterer -
Fig. 2(a). The point generates a spherical object wave, and this interferes with the plane
reference wave. The result is a set of curved fringes (b), which look like an off-centre part
of a zone plate, having a sinusoidal profile. The hologram is photographed and the plate
developed.
Now we shall develop an analytical model to show how both the amplitude and the
phase of the scattered light are recorded in the hologram and how the reconstruction works.
Suppose that at a general point (x, y) in the plate the scattered light has amplitude a(x, y)
and phase φ(x, y). Furthermore, we shall assume that the reference wave is not necessarily
a plane wave, but has uniform amplitude A and phase φ0 (x, y) at the general point. Then
the total wave amplitude at (x, y) is

ψ(x, y) = A exp[iφ0 (x, y)] + a exp[iφ(x, y)] (1)

and the corresponding intensity

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I(x, y) = |ψ(x, y)|2 = A2 + a2 + 2Aa cos[φ(x, y) − φ0 (x, y)] (2)

To make the holographic process linear, we assume a to be much smaller than A, in

which case the term a2 can be neglected and

I(x, y) ≈ A2 + 2Aa cos[φ(x, y) − φ0 (x, y)] (3)

The photograph of this is the hologram. It consists of a set of interference fringes with
sinusoidal profile and phase φ − φ0 . The visibility of the fringes is 2a/A. Since A is a
constant and φ0 is known, both a(x, y) and φ(x, y) are thus recorded in the hologram.
The need for coherent light to record the hologram should now be clear, since the phase
difference φ − φ0 is recorded in the interference pattern.

1.2 Reconstruction of Hologram:

Figure 3: Reconstruction of the hologram of a point object: the first orders diffracted from
the various regions of the plate intersect to form the real reconstruction, and the -1st orders
appear to diverge from the virtual reconstruction.

Reconstruction of the image is carried out by illuminating the developed plate with a
light wave that is identical, or at least very similar, to the original reference wave. Two
images are usually observed. To reconstruct the image we illuminate the hologram with
a plane wave identical to the original reference wave (Fig. 3). We can consider each
part of the hologram individually as a diffraction grating with a certain local line spacing.

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Illumination by the plane reference wave gives rise to a zero order and two first orders of
diffraction, at angles θ1 , θ−1 which depend on the local spacing of the fringes. It is not
difficult to see that the 1 orders intersect and form a real image of the point scatterer,
and the +1 orders form a virtual image at a position identical to the original point. The
images are localized in three dimensions because they are formed by the intersection of
waves coming from different directions.
Two other important points are brought out by this model. First, the reconstructed
point is more accurately defined in position if a large area of the plate is used, causing
the reconstruction orders to meet at a considerable angle; the resolution is therefore a
function of the size of the hologram. Second, the fringes are sinusoidal, since only two
waves interfere. If the plate records this function faithfully, only zero and first orders
will be produced on reconstruction, and only the above two images are produced. This
approach is also useful in understanding the effects of altering the angle of incidence, the
wavelength or the degree of convergence of the reference wave used for the reconstruction.
To deduce the form of the reconstruction, we assume that the interference pattern (3)
is photographed on a plate whose amplitude transmission T (x, y) after development is
linearly related to the exposure intensity I(x, y):

T (x, y) = 1 − α I(x, y) (4)

The hologram is illuminated by a wave identical to the original reference wave A exp[iφ0 (x, y)]
and so the transmitted amplitude is

AT (x, y) exp[iφ0 (x, y)] = [1 − α I(x, y)]A exp[iφ0 (x, y)]

= A[1 − αA2 ] exp[iφ0 (x, y)]
− αA2 a(x, y) exp[iφ(x, y)]
− αA2 a(x, y) exp[i[2φ0 (x, y) − φ(x, y)]]
(5)

The three terms in the above equation are interpreted as follows:

(a) The zero order is an attenuated continuation of the reference wave.
(b) The first order is the virtual image. Apart from the constant multiplier αA2 , the
reconstructed wave is exactly the same as the object wave and so the light appears to
come from a virtual object perfectly reconstructed. Because the complete complex wave
a(x, y) has been reconstructed, the reconstruction looks exactly like the object from every
direction, and so appears three dimensional.
(c) The -1 order is the phase-conjugate image. This wave is the complex conjugate of
the object wave if φ0 is a constant, and then gives a real (rather than virtual) mirror image
of the object. Otherwise it is distorted

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