★★☆ Moderate New

🔮 Holography

Record a hologram by letting object and reference waves interfere on the recording plane, then reconstruct the virtual image by illuminating the hologram with the reference beam alone. Drag the object point to change the interference pattern.

Scene: reference + object waves

Hologram: interference pattern

λ (nm): 532 Ref. angle: 30° Obj. x: 0.30 Obj. y: 0.35

λ = 532 nm (green)

Fringe spacing: —

Mode: Recording

How Holography Works

A hologram records not just the intensity of light but also its phase. This is achieved by splitting a coherent laser beam into two:

Reference beam — a plane wave that travels directly to the recording medium at a fixed angle θ_ref.
Object beam — light scattered from the object (simulated here as a point source) that also reaches the recording medium.

Where these waves meet, they create an interference pattern — a set of bright and dark fringes whose spacing depends on the wavelength λ and the angle between beams: d = λ / (2 sin(θ/2)).

Reconstruction: illuminate the developed hologram with only the reference beam. The interference fringes act as a diffraction grating that reproduces the original object wave — producing a virtual image behind the hologram and a real image in front.

Drag the sliders or click the scene canvas to move the object point.