Fairy lights in femtoseconds: aerial and volumetric graphics rendered by focused femtosecond laser combined with computational holographic fields

Abstract

We envision a laser-induced plasma technology in general applications for public use. If laser-induced plasma aerial images were made available, many useful applications such as spatial aerial AR, aerial user interfaces, volumetric images could be produced. This would be a highly effective display for the expression of three-dimensional information. Volumetric expression has considerable merit because the content scale corresponds to the human body; therefore, this technology could be usefully applied to wearable materials and spatial user interactions. Further, laser focusing technology can add an additional dimension to conventional projection technology, which is designed for surface mapping, while laser focusing technology is capable of volumetric mapping. This technology can be effectively used in real-world-oriented user interfaces.