Scientists produce hologram with thickness of 25nm

A team of Australian and Chinese scientists has developed a hologram with a thickness of 25nm. The technique may eventually be used for holographic storage or 3D renderings.

An obstacle to using holograms in thin electronics is that relatively thick material must be used to record the phase of light. A team from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, is using topological insulator material to create very thin holograms. The material has a low refractive index for the surface layer, but a very high refractive index in the layers below. These properties make it a suitable candidate for optoelectronic applications such as holograms.

The researchers developed a 60nm thin 3x3mm hologram with 1500×1500 pixels. They even managed to create a 25nm thin hologram, but the rendering contained more noise. According to the team, the hologram layers are easy and cheap to make, because they are directly written on with lasers.

They hope to eventually be able to apply their invention for data storage, security and 3D holography. For the latter, they now want to develop a stronger layer that can be placed on an LCD. To do this, they have to make the pixel size at least ten times smaller.

The researchers publish their work under the title Nanometric holograms based on a topological insulator material in Nature Communications.