Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds

Abstract

We present a method of rendering aerial and volumetric graphics using femtosecond lasers. A high-intensity laser excites physical matter to emit light at an arbitrary three-dimensional position. Popular applications can thus be explored, especially because plasma induced by a femtosecond laser is less harmful than that generated by a nanosecond laser. There are two methods of rendering graphics with a femtosecond laser in air: producing holograms using spatial light modulation technology and scanning of a laser beam by a galvano mirror. The holograms and workspace of the system proposed here occupy a volume of up to 1 cm 3 ; however, this size is scalable depending on the optical devices and their setup. This article provides details of the principles, system setup, and experimental evaluation, and discusses the scalability, design space, and applications of this system. We tested two laser sources: an adjustable (30--100fs) laser that projects up to 1,000 pulses/s at an energy of up to 7mJ/pulse and a 269fs laser that projects up to 200,000 pulses/s at an energy of up to 50μJ/pulse. We confirmed that the spatiotemporal resolution of volumetric displays implemented using these laser sources is 4,000 and 200,000 dots/s, respectively. Although we focus on laser-induced plasma in air, the discussion presented here is also applicable to other rendering principles such as fluorescence and microbubbles in solid or liquid materials.