Physics / mechanism
Holographic and volumetric displays generate three-dimensional images either by reconstructing optical wavefronts (true holography) or by emitting/scattering light from voxels distributed through a physical volume. True holographic displays require spatial light modulators (SLMs) with pixel pitches ≤1 µm and refresh rates >1 kHz to reconstruct full-parallax scenes — neither is commercially viable at scale today. Light-field displays (lenticular/microlens arrays) approximate parallax without wavefront reconstruction. Volumetric approaches use spinning LED/OLED panels, laser-swept phosphors, or trapped-particle arrays (e.g., Moth/Bridgwater laser tweezers). Current SoA: ~4K per eye field-of-view in light-field (Looking Glass Pro), sub-centimeter voxel resolution in swept-volume systems. Eye-box, étendue, and compute throughput (petaFLOPS for real-time holographic compute) remain the binding constraints.
Competitive landscape
Competing display modalities: waveguide AR (Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap) dominates near-term enterprise; conventional stereoscopic 3D (VR headsets) captures consumer volume. Swept-volume and light-field occupy distinct niches.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.