The dream of being able to touch and interact with holograms was the subject of many science fiction stories, but a lab in Japan has actually accomplished the feat.

Unlike the fictional holodeck on Star Trek, which used force fields to create a sense of touch, researchers at Japan’s Digital Nature Group used a different method: femtosecond lasers.

This kind of laser-induced plasma 3D imagery has been demonstrated before to show off aerial plasma 3D graphics, but this is the first time such a mechanism has been created that is not harmful to the human touch.

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