January 9, 2006, Ann Arbor, MI--Emmett Leith, a scientist who took the concept of the hologram and added the technology of the laser to help create three-dimensional photography, died on December 23. He was 78.
Leith first presented his holography concepts to the scientific world at a conference of the Optical Society in 1964r. Leith, a professor of engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, and a colleague, Juris Upatnieks, described their work in a paper given at the conference. That work built upon research by Dennis Gabor of the Imperial College London, who coined the term "hologram."
With the invention of the laser in the 1960s, Leith realized that holograms could be greatly improved. Using a technique he called "off-axis holography" and a laser, he and Upatnieks eliminated the double-image problem that had plagued Gabor's efforts and enabled holograms to be viewed in incandescent light.
In 1971, when Gabor won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research, the Nobel committee cited Leith's work. In 1979, Leith was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Jimmy Carter.