VOLUME 35 – NO 1 / JANUARY 2021
When it Comes to Science, South Korea Reaps What it Sows
IHMA Highlights Role of Holograms in Battle Against ID Fraud Holography is at the heart of new document and ID security and authentication, says Dr Paul Dunn, Chairman of the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA).
Scientific research is expensive and often messy, on occasions taking the research into uncharted territories but always contributing to scientific knowledge. Two recent success stories from South Korea in the field of holographic displays illustrate the need for long term planning. According to OECD data, in 2018 South Korea spent over £74 billion on R&D, maintaining its position as the fifth largest R&D investor in the world after the United States, China, Japan and Germany. The Korean Government has set a target to increase the R&D investment to reach 5%. In 2020, the total government R&D budget was planned to be £15.73 billion, which is more than a 17% increase from the 2019 budget.
Conglomerates
The majority of Korean R&D is conducted by the industrial sector (76.23%, 2017) and carried out within the ‘chaebol’ or the large family-controlled international conglomerates that dominate the Korean economy.
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As part of efforts to find wider uses for holograms, researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), one of the country’s chaebols, began to study the development of holographic displays. After eight years of trials, the team has published a paper on slimpanel holographic video displays (see HN November 2020), which claims to overcome many of the problems that have prevented the commercialisation of holographic systems which were first demonstrated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) back in 1990.
Size matters
Existing holographic video devices are limited by the size of their components, both in terms of the physical space required as well as data size. This resulted in either a very narrow viewing angle on a larger display or a larger angle on a miniscule display. The size drawback of video holographic devices was the bulky lens that was required to gather any scattered light from the display’s pixels in order to project a quality image. Continued on page 5 >
Fraudulent passports, driver’s licences and fake documents cost governments, issuing agencies and other global organisations billions of dollars a year in lost revenue. Corporate reputations may also suffer, and investment stifled, as funds are diverted to cover losses, while the cost of paying for anti-counterfeiting measures to bring criminals to justice can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. But in the fight against counterfeiting and fraud, holography, propelled by advances in materials and applications, is valued, particularly in securing data and thwarting criminal interference, tampering, alteration, forgery or imitation – new technology, innovation and advanced processes ensure protection against the forgery of variable information, most notably photographs and personal data. Overt technology such as holograms offer a means of protection and authentication, and a warning about the dangers of counterfeiting. Indeed, in the wake of the COVD pandemic, the threat has significantly increased and countries around the world are looking at ways to tackle the problem and secure documents better. Continued on page 3 >