Game-changing holographic tech focus of ANU research centre

Professor Dragomir Neshev and Professor Chennaputi Jagadish. Photo: ANU - A ground-breaking research centre focused on optical technologies, which could create lifelike moving holograms that display straight from your phone screen, is being officially launched at The Australian National University (ANU). The ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) brings together some of the greatest minds from five Australian universities with 20 partner organisations into a research consortium that aims to change the way we use light. Along with holographic phone screens, the futuristic technology could also make self-driving vehicles an everyday reality and allow doctors to receive real-time images from inside patients at a cellular level. "The lens-based optics that are used in modern-day devices are based on concepts of light that are 3000 years old," TMOS Director and Professor in Physics at ANU Dragomir Neshev said. "That's why your phone is as thick as it is - traditional lenses have to be a certain width in order to work. What we're developing are optical surfaces that replace big lenses.