I have been involved with a variety of researches in holographic technology throughout my career, like holographic non-destructive testing, holographic optical elements, true color holography, holographic stereograms and pulsed laser holography for portraits and sub-atomic particles. Hopefully there will be posts on these topics in the future. Some of my publications do highlight these accomplishments.
But not everything could be deemed fit for academic publication, but does contribute to the field. Here are some write-ups of experiments gone good, bad or nowhere. they are arranged chronologically, some written contemporaneously with the research, others much more ex post facto.
The major efforts have been put in to materials characterization, and there are many links below on that topic along with other lab practical. They are arranged with the latest results at the top, but they may not necessarily be added to the blog in that order.
Insanity at its finest, complete alignment of JK HLS-2 Ruby Laser. (January to March, 2020)
Here are the results of some painstaking experiments in determining diffraction efficiency, (July 2015), and another case study, (February 2019)
Some fun turning junk into a Laser Oscilloscope to add ambience to the Studio. (May 2014)
A fruitless attempt at combining red, green and blue laser beams to generate a white one for multi-color holography with a Trichroic Cube (my word) or X-Prism is chronicled here. (January 2014)
Here is a Slide Show survey of all sorts of holographic recording materials' packages, from Agfa to Ultimate! (December 2013)
A bit of research into breathing fresh life into old photographic papers. (October 2013)
Some trials and tribulations in troubleshooting extremely long exposures and the evolution of building a new plateholder using holographic interferometry. (September 2013)
Much talk has been bantered about coherence lengths of holograms, so here are the results of some experiments done in early 2013 on the practical measurement of coherence length of lasers using holography. (March 2013)
More of a how-to rather than research, here are descriptions of my contributions to the 2013 Hologram Pass-Around sponsored by my droogs at holoforum.org. And here is a downloadable Power Point of the Box o' Holograms that got passed around. (January 2013)
Here is a detailed description of how to get the best out of Sphere-S GEO-3 plates. This processing scheme works well on the Slavich PFG-03M and PFG-03C materials also, as there is a family resemblance between all three. It is a part of the New Adventures of Hans and Ed. (February 2012)
This is a magnum opus started in 2010 initiated by the receipt of samples from Harman Technology. There are over 200 plates interrogated for their holographic image quality, and it might help the holographic community to see the results of these tests. (February 2010 to present)
Similar to above, but more of a minor opus in comparison, a Consumer's Report on the state of the art of Holographic Recording Materials, prepared as a poster session for the 2000 International Symposium on Display Holography at St. Poelten in Austria.
The tongue in cheek title of this work is "Experimental Verification of the Benton Math", which goes beyond looking at diagrams but also witnessing in the real world what the mathematics predict with a cleverly constructed experiment. Research was done at Lake Forest College in the spring of 1990, but not put into html until December 2015.
"Fun on the Floor" details the adventures of setting up a two beam transmission grating on a concrete basement floor and getting results! Research done circa 1989, slides scanned and posted February 2016.
"How Dry I Am" compares alcoholic drying to conventional wetting agents.
"De-Fogging or Erasing" rescues otherwise unusable plates.