3D laser holograms sound cool, but they’re generally hot. As in, hot enough to burn your skin. But now researchers at the Digital Nature Group, a Japanese research company, say they’ve figured out a way to create a 3D laser hologram that is not only safe to the touch but interactive.
These “fairy lights” holograms are composed of light pixels called voxels fired at superfast speeds. (How fast? The laser bursts last 30 to 270 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second.) Voxels are emitted by plasma that’s created when the laser’s focused energy ionizes the air.
via Mental Floss
June 30, 2015