Explosive Embossing of Holographic Structures: Computational Simulation of Procedural Influences to the Reconstructed Hologram

Abstract

Nowadays, the moulding of holographic structures is a relatively complex process: First a master-hologram has to be created in a very soft, possibly even near-liquid, medium. These however are too soft to be of interest for industrial structuring. Further stabilizing of the structures present in the master-hologram requires galvanic processing, which is both energy- and time-intensive as well as environmentally questionable, due to hazardous residues from the galvanic baths. As the medium used is usually relatively soft and hence not really dimensionally stable under stress as found in industrial processes, the mastershims resulting from the first galvanic process are themselves duplicated by further galvanic processing to produce numerable and most importantly interchangeable daughter-shims, In contrast to this laborious process, explosive embossing requires moderate energy- and minimal time-resources, while not producing any hazardous waste. Additionally, the process of explosive embossing enables the use of relatively soft materials to structure hard materials, such as steel. Moreover, it also adresses the issue of forgery-immunity, as the original masterstructure is destroyed in the process, which is schematically displayed in Fig. 1.