Professor Nicholas Phillips was a British physicist who developed and helped popularise the holographic image.

In the 1970s he and his company Holoco, with the help of the rock band The Who, came with up a method for creating high quality images utilising the hologram technology that was invented in the 1940s.

His work involved The Who's stage show lasers and the light-sensitive compound silver halide to create three-dimensional images.

This led to an exhibitions of holographic art at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1977 and 1978, resulting in queues round the block. Who drummer Keith Moon commissioned them to make an image of himself shortly before his death in 1978.

Phillips from Finchley in London studied physics at Imperial College, before going into scientific research, including work on atomic weapons. From 1965 to 1993 he worked at Loughborough University where he developed his holographic imaging technique.

He held numerous patents in the field of imaging and was a Fellow of both the Institute of Physics and Royal College of Art.

He suffered from Parkinson's disease in later life and died on 23 May, 2009. He was survived by his wife, Kathy, and their son and daughter.