Femtosecond Lasers Deliver Interactive 3D Midair Plasma Displays

Interactive displays, or information kiosks, are a norm these days. We see them in many public spaces and areas, and they do seem to be part of our everyday interaction with technology. However, what if there was a different method of offering such interactive displays? Aerial Burton of Japan has discovered a way to manipulate lasers to ionize air molecules that are in midair, which results in bright pixels that float in our corporeal space. The amount of power has been set at the right level so that you do not burn yourself upon touching it, resulting in the generation of images that rely on femtosecond lasers which one can actually interact with using touch.

This particular system is extremely unique, don’t you think so? Contact between plasma and a finger would result in a brighter light, and this particular effect might be used as a trigger, and another possible control would be touch interaction, where floating images will change when a user touches it. How about damage reduction? When safety reasons are taken into consideration, the plasma voxels would be shut off within a single frame whenever users touch the voxels.

Dubbed as “Fairy Lights”, they not only change upon touch, but are also 100% safe to walk through, letting you “feel” light as it floats in front of you. It remains to be see as to the creative kind of user interface systems that can surface from such an idea.

Edwin Kee
Categories: General
Tags: laser, Science