Holography

[z-component]

I am constructing a hologram device for a school project. The hologram will be made with a HeNe laser, but what can I expect it to actually look like? If constructed correctly, will the hologram be fully 3-dimensional like the original object? I can't find any good pictures of an actual demonstration online.

[berkeman]

I don't know if it will be of help, but try to find a copy of the Holography Handbook.

http://www.rossbooks.com/HH/hh.html

It has many practical suggestions for making your own holograms. I found the coherence length comments about the source laser to be especially important (and that alone kept me from making any holograms with my dumpy HeNe laser). When you make a hologram, you are exposing photographic film (no lenses) to two incident laser wavefronts, one directly from the source laser, and another that is split off and reflecting off the subject. After you develop the photographic film (and maybe do some more processing?), you can use the original source laser to view the image on the film, and it appears to have 3-D qualities.

[z-component]

Thanks, I checked out that site and it's a nice resource. It appears that the hologram is scaled down in size. Which aspect of the construction (i.e. the lenses or mirrors) causes this scaling?