Holographic Multiplexing for 3D Optical Memory

Optical 3D data storage research has focussed on developing materials with little consideration given to basic system architecture questions. Basic design choices remain to be made; a key issue is bit versus wavefront recording schemes. These issues can only be resolved by demonstrating real architectures. Foster-Miller's holographic data recording system will be based on 3D optical storage materials using an input/output technique which applies a recently discovered nonlinear optical method. The system will incorporate a device for demultiplexing image data temporally modulated onto laser wavefronts, so as to provide stable wavefronts for holographic recording. An opticallock-in detector based on four-wave mixing will solve this problem by converting image data streams from temporally to spatially multiplexed form. On this basis, a complete holographic volume storage system of up to 1 terabit/cmE3 capacity may be possible.