Scientists have created the world's best and biggest 3D living hologram

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By Matthew Griffin Virtual World 27th January 2018

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Scientists, and society at large, have been waiting for holograms technology to appear on the market for decades, and while you’ll still have to wait before you can buy one in the shops we’re starting to edge closer to realising the dream.

Science fiction movies, like Avatar, Iron Man, Prometheus and, most famously Star Wars, almost always include 3D holograms that you can see from any angle, but so far, in today’s world, the reality, other than a breakthrough last year that created floating 3D plasma holograms you could touch using femtolasers has been much less exciting. Until now that it is.

The team used something called an “Optical Trap Display” to create their volumetric images. The difficulty with holograms so far is that you need something to reflect the laser light so your eyes can see it. BYU’s device uses lasers to trap a tiny particle in free space, or as we call it, the air, that can force it to move in a path, much like how electromagnets deflect the electron beam in a CRT television, then other blue, red and green lasers illuminate it. And if the particle moves fast enough, it creates the illusion of a solid, animated holographic image. Heck, let’s just call it a hologram, after all that’s what it is… even if that isn’t the right scientific term for it.

“A single point was dragged sequentially through all these image points, and as it did, it scattered light,” said Smalley, “and the accumulated effect of all that scattering and moving was to create this 3D image in space that is visible from all angles.”

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, multi-award winning Futurist and named Futurist of the Year 2024, has been described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath. One of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts Matthew is the 15 times author of the blockbuster "Codex of the Future" series, and is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer and mentor, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, Dow, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.