Bitmap and Vectorial Hologram Recording by Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses

Abstract In this paper, we present two approaches for recording a quasi-hologram on the steel surface by femtosecond laser pulses. The recording process is done by rotating the polarization of the laser beam by a half-wave plate or a spatial light modulator (SLM), so we can control the spatial orientation of the formed laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS). Two different approaches are shown, which use vector and bitmap images to record the hologram. For the first time to our knowledge, we managed to record a hologram of a bitmap image by continuously adjusting the laser beam polarization by SLM during scanning. The developed method can sabstantially improve hologram recording technology by increasing its speed, reducing the price, and eliminating complex processing procedures.