While working to improve the resolution of an electron microscope, a brilliant man named Dennis Gabor had developed a theory on Holography. This dates back to the year of 1947. Dennis Gabor is a British/Hungarian scientist who created the word Holography from Greek terms. He used the word holos, meaning whole, and gramma, meaning message. ” Gabor characterized his work as an experiment in serendipity that was begun too soon. The next decade brought about frustration in Holography because light sources available at the time were not coherent.
In 1960 a breakthrough came forth. The invention of the laser had pure and intense light that was well suited for the making of holograms. Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks of the University of Michigan both had realized that Holography could be used as a 3-D visual medium in 1962. After reading Gabor’s paper they decided to duplicate Gabor’s technique. Gabor’s technique was using the laser and an off axis technique borrowed from their work in the development of side reading radar. The outcome of this experiment was the first laser transmission hologram of 3-D objects.
The transmission holograms that Leith and Upatnieks created produced images with clarity and realistic depth. The only issue was that they required laser light to view the holographic image. The experimental work of both these men led to standardization of the equipment used to make holograms. Thousands of laboratories and studios today possess the necessary equipment. They are the following: A continuous wave laser, optical devices, such as, lens, mirrors, and beam splitters which is used to direct laser light, a film holder, and an isolation table on which exposures are made.
Stability is an essential trait because movement as small as a quarter wave length of light during exposures of a few minutes or even seconds can spoil a hologram completely. The staple of holographic methodology is the basic of the off-axis technique. The creation of a hologram is quite extensive. “A beam of laser light is visually separated into two beams. One, the reference beam, is directed toward a piece of holographic film and expanded (its diameter increased) so that the light covers the film evenly and completely.
The second (object) beam is directed at the subject of the composition and similarly expanded to illuminate it (Vacca, 16). ” The object beam carries information about the location, size, shape, and the texture of the subject when the object beam reflects off of it. “Some of this reflected object beam then meets the reference beam at the holographic film, producing an interference pattern which is recorded in the light sensitive emulsion (Vacca, 16). ” The hologram is illuminated at the same angle as the reference beam during the original exposure to reveal the 3-D image after the film is developed.
Another great experiment that occurred in 1962 was by Dr. Uri N. Denisyuk of the U. S. S. R. He combined Holography with natural color photography. Natural color photography was created by Nobel Laureate Gabriel Lippman in 1908. Denisyuk’s approach produced a white-light reflection hologram that could be viewed in light from an ordinary incandescent light bulb. Dr. T. H. Maimam of the Hughes Aircraft Corporation developed the pulsed ruby laser in 1960. This laser system was unlike the continuous wave laser normally used in holography.
It emitted a very powerful burst of light that lasted only a few nanoseconds, which would be a billionth of a second. It is possible to produce holograms of high-speed events, such as a bullet in flight, and of living subjects by it’s effectively freezing movement. In the year of 1967, the first hologram of a person was made. It paved the way for a specialized application of holography, which is classified as, pulsed holographic portraiture. The first mass distributed hologram which was a 4×3 transmission view of chess pieces on a board was contained in the 1967 World Book Encyclopedia Science Yearbook.
Along with it was an article that described the production of the hologram and the basic information about the history of holography. An advancement that was made in holography was a 05-watt He-Ne laser. “The laser was used on a nine-tone granite table in a 30-second exposure to make the original from which all the copies were produced (Fournier, 55). ” Another major advance in display holography occurred in 1968 with the help of Dr. Stephen A. Benton. Dr. Benton invented a white-light transmission holography while researching holographic television at Polaroid Research Laboratories.
This type of hologram can be viewed in ordinary white light creating a rainbow image from the seven colors, which make up white light. The depth and brilliance of the image and its rainbow spectrum soon infatuated artists who adapted this technique to their work and brought holography further into public awareness. Benton’s invention is especially significant because it made mass production possible of holograms using an embossing technique. These holograms are printed by stamping the interference pattern onto plastic. The resulting hologram can be duplicated millions of times for only a few cents apiece.
As a result, the publishing, advertising, and banking industries are currently today using embossed holograms. Dennis Gabor was finally recognized for his magnificent work in 1971. Gabor was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of holography in 1947. Lloyd Cross discovered what is called the integral hologram. He did this by combining white light transmission holography with conventional cinematography to produce moving 3 dimensional images in the year of 1972. “Sequential frames of 2-D motion-picture footage of a rotating subject are recorded on holographic film (Fournier 56).
When looked at, the composite images are synthesized by the human brain as a 3-D image. A great asset to the invention of holography was The Museum of Holography. The museum was founded in 1976 in New York City as an international center for the understanding and advancement of this new medium. Rosemary H. Jackson is the founder. It serves as the focal point for the art, science and technology, as well as the world’s foremost holography exhibitor. ‘One year later, the museum opened its Portrait Gallery of Famous New Yorkers (Hol-o-fame) with Martin E. Segal, NY Commission of Cultural Affairs noting, We congratulate the Museum.
I can’t think of anything that has happened in New York in the arts in the last four years that is more symbolic of this great city than this innovative, new, imaginative and enduring art form (Fournier 122). ’ Another great asset came about in 1977, the Museum of Holography’s traveling exhibition, Through the Looking Glass. ” It is based on its inaugural exhibition of the same name and was opened in Toronto. The traveling show visited art museums and galleries, children’s museums and science & technology centers in the United States and abroad for well over a decade.
