Using Holograms to Shrink Projectors
Projectors have become a common tool in schools and businesses for when presentations need to be made. A major component of these devices are their zoom lenses, but thanks researchers in Poland and Japan, as reported by the Optical Society, those may be removed in the coming years.
Holography is a field of science that involves using the interference between two lasers to encode information, even three dimensional information, onto a two dimensional medium. By their nature, lenses are not needed to create holograms, which is what the researchers are taking advantage of. Instead of using an optical system to magnify an image, they developed algorithms to magnify the holographic imagery, and reduce the aliasing that could occur.
The prototype the researchers built is about 160x80x40 millimeters, but it could easily shrink by using parts engineered specifically for the system, instead of currently available commercial parts. Eventually this technology may be used to create the smallest projectors to date, because the fewest parts are needed, but such projectors likely will not be commercially available for five to ten years.
Source: The Optical Society