Printable Surface Holograms via Laser Ablation

Holographic displays are used for applications in data storage, light trapping, security, sensing, and optical devices. Currently available fabrication techniques for holography remain expertise-dependent, costly, and time-consuming, limiting the widespread personalized use of holograms. The development of efficient and low-cost techniques for the rapid fabrication of holograms is required for practical applications. In this report, we use a single 6 ns laser pulse to record holographic surface gratings by ablation in well-ordered printed ink on a substrate. The entire hologram fabrication process can be completed within a few minutes. The photonic features of the prepared holograms have been modeled computationally and characterized experimentally. We demonstrate the versatility of our fabrication method by preparing 2D and 3D holograms on both optically transmissive and opaque surfaces. We anticipate that our strategy to fabricate holograms through laser ablation may hold great potential in personalized data storage, optical, and security applications.