What Can Micro-Optics Learn from Holographics?

In this excerpt from July’s ‘Authentication Insights ’ - renowned security hologram producer, De La Rue, asks what can micro-optics learn from holographics?

Both micro-optics and holographic technologies used in secure documents today have their origins dating back to the second half of the previous century.

Micro-optic products first appeared in the mid to late 1980s, when lens-based lenticular devices became popular as novelty items fabricated using injection moulding, such as for greeting cards, advertising posters and bookmarks.

Lenticular displays

The process for making lenticular displays was quite time consuming, requiring a selection of images from an animated sequence to be aligned precisely with a lenticular lens made from a sheet of transparent material with a series of thin, parallel semi-cylindrical lenses on one side and a flat surface on the other side.