The world's first reusable 3-D screen debuts, thanks to new photorefractive film that can be written on and erased again and again

Researchers at the University of Arizona's College of Optical Sciences (OSC) in Tucson, and engineers from Nitto Denko Technical Corporation, in Oceanside, Calif., recently unveiled a prototype of a photorefractive polymer film on which 3-D images can be recorded, erased and replaced with new images. When carried out swiftly enough, this process leads to a series of images on the film that deliver three-dimensional action that can be picked up by the naked eye.

The new device has medical, industrial, military applications.

The holographic displays – which are viewed without special eyewear – are the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory ever to be developed, making them ideal tools for medical, industrial and military applications that require "situational awareness."

Photorefractive polymers and nonlinear optics