SHANNON, CLARE, IRELAND, February 27, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — A recent publication from Opto-Electronic Advances has highlighted significant advancements in the field of dynamic polychromatic holography. The research, detailed under DOI 10.29026/oea.2026.250177, explores the utilisation of light as a multifaceted carrier of information, which encompasses properties such as wavelength, polarization, and phase.
These properties serve as intricate codes that define our visual reality and enhance information transmission capabilities. The efficient manipulation of these light codes is essential for achieving high-capacity data storage and secure information encryption. Traditional optical components, including lenses and gratings, often suffer from limitations due to their bulkiness and fixed functionalities, which restrict their application in modern information technologies.
Recent innovations in planar optics, particularly through the use of metasurfaces, have shown promise. By meticulously arranging nanostructures on a plane thinner than the wavelength of light, these surfaces can shape optical wavefronts, thus promoting the miniaturisation of optical devices. However, the functionalities of many metasurfaces tend to be static post-fabrication, creating challenges for real-time applications such as dynamic holographic displays and reconfigurable optical processors.
To address these challenges, researchers have turned to liquid crystals, which are integral to the functioning of liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Liquid crystals exhibit unique soft matter characteristics, allowing for reversible and rapid changes in molecular orientation under external stimuli, such as electric fields, temperature, or light. This property makes liquid crystals an ideal candidate for dynamic planar optics.
Despite the potential, achieving a single device capable of broadband, dynamic, and polychromatic regulation integrated with complex wavefront modulation remains a formidable challenge. Current solutions often involve the alignment of multiple independent devices, which can be cumbersome and inefficient.
The authors propose a novel approach to dynamic polychromatic holography, leveraging a polymer-stabilised chiral superstructure. By employing polymer-stabilised cholesteric liquid crystals (CLC), the research team successfully realised a dynamic polychromatic holographic display featuring dual multiplexing of wavelength and polarisation.
The core of this research lies in the seamless integration of structural programming and dynamic broadband response. The team utilised a modified Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm in conjunction with k-space engineering to compute and create off-axis phase-type holograms for the primary colours: red (R), green (G), and blue (B). High-precision digital photopatterning technology was then applied to encode phase information into the initial molecular orientation of the polymer-stabilised CLC layer, effectively ‘writing’ the holographic function.
The device’s dynamic capabilities arise from its unique electric response mechanism. At zero electric field, the liquid crystal maintains a uniform pitch with a narrow photonic bandgap (~40 nm), efficiently reflecting and modulating incident light of a specific band (for example, green light), thus presenting a monochromatic holographic image. As the strength of the DC electric field increases, the helical structure transforms into a gradient pitch, broadening the reflection bandwidth to 180 nm, which encompasses the entire visible spectrum. This process allows for the sequential activation of the pre-encoded red and blue light holographic channels, ultimately synthesising a high-quality full-colour holographic image. Notably, this entire process is reversible, with switching times in the order of hundreds of milliseconds.
Moreover, the inherent spin selectivity of CLC Bragg reflection and the modulation characteristics of the geometric phase (Bragg-Berry phase) were exploited. By cascading polymer-stabilised CLCs of opposite helicity, each encoded with distinct holographic information, the team demonstrated a spin-complexed polychromatic holography with switchable hexa-channel functionalities. This design enables selective display of holographic images based on the circular polarisation state of the incident light, while also allowing for reversible addition or removal of colour channels through voltage control.
This innovative approach achieves orthogonal multiplexing across two dimensions—polarisation and wavelength—allowing for up to six independently addressable optical information channels within a single device. This advancement significantly enhances the functional density and information-carrying capacity of the technology.
This research represents a pivotal progression in the field of dynamic planar optics, moving from static displays towards intelligent multi-parameter regulation. The implications of this technology are far-reaching, with potential applications in high-security dynamic optical anti-counterfeiting, switchable multi-dimensional information displays, and high-density optical information encryption and storage systems.