Reprogrammable holograms from maskless surface photo-morphing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, reprogrammable holographic projector fabricated via a single-step lithography process on a photo-morphable polymer, enabling dynamic hologram display and data sharing.

Contribution

It presents the first reprogrammable, pixel-less morphological holographic projector created through an all-optical, single-step lithography method on a surface.

Findings

Real-time surface pattern optimization achieved.

First prototype of a fully reprogrammable holographic projector.

Demonstrated potential for dynamic holographic imaging and data sharing.

Abstract

Holographic technologies have the potentiality to impact our everyday life in many sectors including science, education, entertainment, art, and healthcare. Although holographic screens and projectors are part of common imagination since long time, they are still at initial stages of development and integration. Recent achievements of metasurface and flat optics research gave an unprecedented strength to this field, overcoming critical aspects as efficiency, size and flexibility of conventional optics and liquid crystal technologies. However, although diffractive and metasurface holographic projectors with advanced functionalities and improved efficiencies are continuously reported, they are static devices, requiring demanding, burdensome, and irreversible manufacturing processes. Here we report an all-optical and single-step lithographic framework for the fabrication of diffractive holographic projectors directly on the surface of a photo-morphable polymer film. Real-time optimization during the accurate surface patterning and fully structural reconfigurability allowed for the first prototype of a fully reprogrammable pixel-less morphological projector, opening new routes for holographic image displaying and optical data sharing.