Development of fringe printer and its practical applications

It becomes quite easy to calculate over 10 Giga-pixel computer-generated hologram (CGH) of three-dimensional object, even with a normal personal computer. On the other hand, it is not so easy to output the calculated result as a hologram. The commercial printer does not show the enough parameter which CGH requires. Also, the liquid crystal panel has a few micron pixel pitch, but the number of pixels is only a few mega. Since computer-generated display hologram requires over 100 Giga-pixel, the parameter of liquid crystal panel does not satisfy the demand. The electron beam writer is well known as the good output device for the CGH. However, since the price of the whole system is very expensive and the running cost is also high, it is not suitable for the personal output device of CGH. We have developed a direct fringe printer, which consist of a laser, an X-Y stage and a liquid crystal panel, and the de-magnified image of it is recorded on a holographic plate. Then the plate is translated by the X-Y stage to write next part of the fringe. Since the running cost of the fringe printer is almost holographic plate fee, its price is not so expensive. In this paper, we have made some improvements on our previous system. We achieved to print more than 10 Giga-pixel hologram with 0.44 um pitch. Also, we introduce the various kind of CGH with the fringe printer; Fresnel type, rainbow type, cylindrical type and disk type.