Research from the University of St Andrews paves the way for holographic technology, with the potential to transform smart devices, communication, gaming and entertainment. Researchers from the school of Physics and Astronomy created a new optoelectronic device from the combined use of holographic metasurfaces (HMs) and OLEDs. Until now, holograms have been created using lasers. However, researchers have found that using OLEDs and HMs provides a simpler and more compact approach that is potentially cheaper and easier to apply, overcoming the main barriers to hologram technology being used more widely. OLEDs are thin film devices widely used to make the colored pixels in mobile phone displays and some TVs. As a flat and surface-emitting light source, OLEDs are also used in emerging applications such as optical wireless communications, biophotonics, and sensing, where the ability to integrate with other technologies makes them good candidates to realize miniaturized light-based platforms. Artist’s depiction of the holographic display technology developed by researchers at the University of St. Andrews. Courtesy of the University of St. Andrews. A holographic metasurface is a thin, flat array of tiny structures called meta-atoms designed to manipulate light’s properties. They can make holograms and their uses span diverse fields, such as data storage, anti-counterfeiting, optical displays, high numerical aperture lenses — for example optical microscopy, and sensing. This, however, is the first time both have been used together to produce the basic building block of a holographic display. Researchers found that when each meta-atom is carefully shaped to control the properties of the beam of light that goes through it, it behaves as a pixel of the HM. When light goes through the HM, at each pixel, the properties of the light are slightly modified. Thanks to these modifications, it is possible to create a pre-designed image on the other side, exploiting the principle of light interference, whereby light waves create complicated patterns when they interact with each other. “Holographic metasurfaces are one of the most versatile material platforms to control light. With this work, we have removed one of the technological barriers that prevent the adoption of metamaterials in everyday applications,” said Andrea Di Falco, professor in nanophotonics at the School of Physics and Astronomy. “This breakthrough will enable a step change in the architecture of holographic displays for emerging applications, for example, in virtual and augmented reality.” “OLED displays normally need thousands of pixels to create a simple picture. This new approach allows a complete image to be projected from a single OLED pixel,” said professor Graham Turnbull, from the School of Physics and Astronomy. Until now, researchers could only make very simple shapes with OLEDs, which limited their usability in some applications. However, this breakthrough provides a path toward a miniaturized and highly integrated metasurface display. The research was published in Light: Science and Applications (www.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01912-z).