Holograms to prevent frauds

Researchers at the Harvard University have finally found a way to prevent credit card frauds with compact holograms. Scientists have developed a new method to create holograms that can protect credit cards, driver's licences etc from fraud. The research appears in the journal Science Advances.

These compact holograms will work across the spectrum of light, and may improve protection against fraud as well as lead to better entertainment displays.

However, holographic technology has been around for decades, it has always been difficult to make compact holograms more efficient, complex and secure. If we decode concept of “holograms” they are just like digital photographs. They just capture a field of light around an object and encode it on a chip. While, photographs can only record the intensity of light, holograms can also capture the phase of light, which is why holograms appear three-dimensional.

The Harvard University scientists have programmed polarisation into compact holograms. They can help protect credit cards, driver's licences etc from fraud -- in grocery store scanners and biomedical devices.

So, using nanostructures that are sensitive to polarisation (the direction in which light vibrates) these holograms produce different images depending on the polarisation of incident light.

This advancement, which works across the spectrum of light, improves anti-fraud holograms as well as those used in entertainment displays.

Federico Capasso, Professor at Harvard says, by using incident polarised light, you can see far a crisper image and can store and retrieve more images," and “we've made holograms that are highly efficient, meaning that very little light is lost to create the image.”

By using the technique of polarisation they have managed to add another dimension to holograms in order to protect against counterfeiting and in applications like displays. The researchers claim, that since this system is compact, it has application in portable projectors, 3D movies and wearable optics. Seems like a good news for future!