Small but promising DanSmalley Lab, Brigham Young University

Today’s holograms cannot create interactive 3D shapes like the ones we see sci-fi movies, but a new method that uses a single particle to trace out a floating picture brings that one step closer to reality.

“We’ve all been deceived when it comes to holograms,” says Daniel Smalley at Brigham Young University in Utah. “Even if holograms get as good as they could possibly be, they’re fundamentally limited and incapable of creating a Princess Leia-like image that floats in space, far from its projected aperture, that you can walk …