Holography

In News

• Scientists have developed a method using holographic imaging to detect both viruses and antibodies.

About holographic imaging

• Hologram
  • A hologram is a physical structure that diffracts light into an image. The term ‘hologram’ can refer to both the encoded material and the resulting image.
  • It is a process that creates three-dimensional images called holograms.
• This is done using laser beams, the properties of interference and diffraction, light intensity recording, and illumination of the recording.
• A holographic image can be seen by looking into an illuminated holographic print or by shining a laser through a hologram and projecting the image onto a screen.
• The Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 “for his invention and development of the holographic method”.
• Uniqueness of holographic images:
  • The images created so change according to the relative position of the individual viewer as if the objects displayed are actually present.

Potential applications  holographic imaging

• Military mapping.
• Information storage.
• Medical.
• Fraud and security: Eg- small silver rectangle of a dove on your credit card.
• Art.

Antibodies

• They are also called immunoglobulin. It is a Y-shaped protective protein produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, called an antigen.
• There are five immunoglobulin classes (isotypes) of antibody molecules found in serum: IgG, IgM, IgA, IgE and IgD and are distinguished by the type of heavy chain they contain.
• When antibodies find their target, they bind to it, which then triggers a cascade of actions that vanquish the invader. Antibodies are part of the so-called “adaptive” immune system, the arm of the immune system that learns to recognize and eliminate specific pathogens.