Scientist awarded grant to fund holography research

ERC Advanced Grants are awarded by the European Research Council to allow outstanding scientists to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects.

Today, despite many efforts by researchers worldwide, there are no holographic projectors that allow video-rate electronically controlled projection of complex holograms. Optically rewriteable holograms exist, but they are too slow; acoustically-formed holograms can be switched fast but the image complexity is very limited. With a breakthrough combination of smart electronics, optics and materials, imec’s Jan Genoe aims to clear the roadblocks and enable next gen video holography.

Jan Genoe: “At imec, we have most of the underlying technologies and expertise that are needed to advance holography. Advanced CMOS technologies enable to write huge hologram patterns at data rates beyond 10Gbit/s, we can design a front end that can control charges and voltage patterns at sub-wavelength resolution. Moreover, we can grow the necessary waveguides, couple laser light into them, and integrate transparent semiconducting oxides to bring charges close to a waveguide. This grant offers us the opportunity to merge all the necessary technology to make this giant leap in holography.”

The ERC Advanced Grants are earmarked for scientists who are leaders in their field of research with at least a decade of significant achievements. Imec’s CTO Jo De Boeck comments, “Adding to the other ERC grants that our researchers already received, this one again proves that we are investing in long-term, high-quality research needed to solve this generation’s R&D challenges. This radical combination of innovation in architecture, materials and driving schemes will be the driver for many future innovations and applications in domains such as augmented reality, automotive, optical metrology, mobile communication, education, or safety, innovations with a high economic and social impact.”

Jan Genoe is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff of imec’s Large Area Electronics (LAE) department and part-time professor at KU Leuven (ESAT, Technology Campus Diepenbeek). He received an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. from KU Leuven in 1988 and 1994 respectively. Before joining imec, Jan Genoe worked at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Grenoble (France) as a Human Capital and Mobility Fellow of the European Community. His current research interests are with designing circuits with organic and oxide transistors, but also with organic photovoltaics and piezo-electric devices. Jan Genoe is the author and co-author of more than 150 papers in refereed journals. He is reviewer for a broad range of journals and is member of the Technology Directions international program committee of the ISSCC.