Scalable optical architecture for electronic holography

Synthetic-aperture holography represents an attractive approach to the problem of three-dimensional data visualization. However, scaling the technology beyond a proof of concept requires a modification of the original architecture to allow for an increased hologram space-bandwidth product. It is demonstrated how the Fourier domain of a scanned aperture display can be segmented in small domains, each being processed by a different scanning element. The behavior of a display exhibiting such a segmentation is described, and the conditions under which images can be produced without incurring significant degradation are derived. A large-scale display based on the implementation of these concepts is demonstrated.