Blur suppression in holographic imaging with use of surface plasmons

Although holography has been used in a variety of fields, three-dimensional display application is still in the research and development stage. Extended sources, such as natural light, bulbs, and light-emitting diodes blur the reconstructed objects owing to the angular spread in light illumination onto a hologram. In this Letter, we discuss the suppression of image blur with the use of surface plasmons. Surface plasmons couple to a hologram only at a narrow angular range (∼0.68°) of extended-source illumination. Experimental results of the reconstruction of a rose pendant are shown to compare the blurring effect between plasmon and nonplasmon holograms.