swoodcoc@isis.cs.du.edu (Steven Markus Woodcock) (05/27/91)
I ran across the following article in this week's issue of Computer World
the other day. I thought that my fellow techo-freaks would be interested:
"An instant camera that produces holograms may be one of the products to
come from the discovery of a polymer that has the optical characteristics
previosly found only in a few small, expsensive crystals. Researchers at
IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., said the polymer is the
world's first to exhibit the 'photorefractive' effect. Illumination by
light causes electrical charges within the polymer--a mix of epoxy and organic
material--to move, altering its index of refraction. When two laser beams
cross within a photorefractive material, they create a pattern of electrical
charge similar to a hologram that changes the optical properties of the
material it is passing through. This effect makes it possible to store 100
complete holograms or images in a tiny space no larger than the head of a
pin, researchers said. If coated onto goggles, a photorefractive film
could disperse a laser beam so the wearer would not be blinded by the intense
light."
It seems to me that this is going to revolutionize photography, computers
and computer storage, libraries, etc. (if they can make the technology work).
My oh my, what NEAT times we live in!!!!!!!
Steven W.
One of the Good Guys
--
"...Men will awake presently and be Men again, and colour and laughter and
splendid living will return to a grey civilization. But that will only come
true because a few Men will believe in it, and fight for it, and fight in its
name against everything that sneers and snarls at that ideal..."