Jun 11, 2023 03:48 PM
The laser is the archetypical quantum device. It uses a "lasing" material to capture photons which push up the energy of an electron in an atom of the material. The material is usually a ruby crystal. Instead of being absorbed by the electron, the photon triggers the release of a second electron.
The hologram is the one of the first commercial applications of lasers. It works similar to a glass window that shows a three-dimensional object. The light particles or photons reflect off of the objects on the other side and arrive at the surface of the window from different directions and thus different phases. As the viewer changes his/her position the image changes its viewing position. Holograms capture the information encoded in the photons and recreates or reproduces the image, creating a three-dimensional image.
I'm not exactly sure, but I think that laser holograms work by the same principle as card strips and bar code holograms except it uses three lasers, one of which shines upon the interference pattern created by the first two.