Stretchable hologram can switch between multiple images

To make their holograms, Ritesh Agarwal and colleagues turned to metasurfaces, which are flat, ultra-thin nanostructured surfaces. Previous studies have already used such materials to create 3-D and multi-color holograms, and Agarwal's team has made them recently by embedding gold nanorods in a stretchable film of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Building on this work, Agarwal wanted to understand how a holographic image changes with stretching and to see if they could use this information to create a hologram that can switch between images.

Using computational models and experiments, they calculated how much a holographic image expands as the material generating it stretches, and how far the image plane moves away from its original position. Based on these findings, they created multi-layered holograms made up of two or three different images. As the surface stretches, one image appears in the place of another. So, for example, a pentagon appears at 340 micrometers away from the film in its relaxed state. Pulling on the material by a certain amount makes a square appear, and stretching it even further replaces the square image with a triangle. The new method could have applications in virtual reality, flat displays and optical communications.

The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation.

Watch the hologram change shape in this Headline Science video: https://youtu.be/EZsipYv3-6A