That tiny fairy is actually plasma produced by femtosecond lasers (via arsiv.org)
Mid-air displays are nothing new (see Displair, LED Wave Display and Ariel Burton) in terms of technology advancements, they’ve been around for a few years now. But what if we could physically touch them as though they were something tangible, something that had some essence of substance? That day is closer than you think thanks to some cleaver group of researchers from the University of Tsukuba, Utsunomiya University, Nagoya Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo.
The team was able to project images in the air that can be ‘touched’ using a kind of haptic feedback with the added benefit of not burning skin while doing so. To create the floating images, the team used high-speed laser that pulse in the femtosecond territory rather than the nano-second- that’s fast considering the nano version pulses at 1-billionth of a second and the femto, a million times over that.
Those tiny illuminated particles are known as ‘Voxels’ (a pixel in 3D space) and are essentially heated plasma that’s ignited by femto-lasers.
To produce a tangible 3D image (or volumetric display) the team used the femto-lasers to produce plasma-based (heated gas) voxels, which are rendered in a fixed 3D workspace with the help of a galvano mirror for the X and Y-axis and a verifocal lens for the Z. Combing the tech allows the creation of a very small image that features a haptic feedback sensation (due to the laser speed) when touched.
Yes, the image and the work area are on the small side with an image resolution of roughly 200,000 voxels in a workspace of only 8-cubic millimeters, however the technology is still in its infancy and the researchers hope to develop larger versions in the future. As the technology stands at this point, the researchers demonstrated that their technology can be used as an spatial AR overlay for real-world objects (albeit very small objects)- meaning you can superimpose an image over a 3D object, which would be useful for building or back engineering an object.
They also found that it’s great for aerial interaction- meaning when touched, the plasma becomes brighter, which can act as a cue of contact, much like pressing a keyboard key a tapping an icon on a mobile device. Finally, the haptic feedback produced by the femto-lasers can be used for a myriad of applications where touch is necessary. It will be interesting to see how the technology evolves over the next few years. Will we finally be able to see and feel 3D images on the scale of Star Trek’s Holo-Suite sooner rather than later?
C
See more news at:
