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A hologram is a photographic recording of a light field, rather than of an image formed by a lens. It is used to display a fully three-dimensional image of the holographed subject. Dennis Gabor invented holography in 1948; the discovery was a result of research into improving electron microscopes for the British Thomson-Houston Company in Rugby, England. Gabor was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for the discovery.
Although holograms were invented in 1948, the industry field did not advance until the invention of the laser in 1960. Yuri Denisyuk made the first practical optical holograms with recorded 3D objects, followed by Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks at the University of Michigan. The first holograms produced were transmission holograms, viewed by shining laser light through them. Newer "rainbow transmission" holograms allow illumination through natural white light rather than a laser.
Holography is lensless photography, with 3D images being recorded in an interference pattern rather than film, like traditional photography. The images are formed using coherent laser light reflected from an object and combined at the film with light from a reference beam.
Holography has been used in a variety of uses, from art to data storage. Common applications include photography, microscopy, image storage, and image replication.
Holographic data storage is a technique used to store information at high density inside crystals or photopolymers. Although holographic memory allows a high level of memory, they have reached an upper limit of data density due to a limited size of the writing beams. DVDs and CDs are examples of this memory system and the ceiling of the process.
Hitachi introduced the video disc system in 1975, using three laser angles to store a 1mm diameter hologram on a 305mm disc. The disc had a capacity of 54,000 frames, or 30 minutes of run time for NTSC color standard.
Today, Holographic Versatile Discs (HVD) can hold up to 6 terabytes of data, the equivalent of about 1,630 DVDs. Although they can hold large amounts of data and read it twice as fast as a standard DVD, they are not widely used due to the high cost of production for the discs themselves and the implementation in a reading device.
Three companies were involved in developing holographic memory, namely InPhase and Aprilis in the US and Optware in Japan. InPhase went bankrupt in 2010, but had filed a Joint Research Agreement Nintendo in 2008.
Holographic art grew in popularity, with over 500 exhibitions during the late 70s. Popularity waned in the 80s, with the medium remaining in the public conscience through pop culture and niche collectors. The Center for the Holographic Arts, or HoloCenter, was first opened in New York City in 1998 by artists Ana Maria Nicholson and Dan Schweitzer.
The medium continues to regain popularity, with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquiring 105 glass plate holograms from C-Project in March 2019.