Abstract

There has been a rekindling of interest in recent years in the feasibility of constructing practical holographic digital data storage devices capable of competing with conventional magnetic or optical drives. This renewal has been due to advances in materials, and in enabling technologies such as the lasers, CCD arrays, and Spatial Light Modulators (SLM) necessary to realize such devices at competitive densities and data rates. Several recent works have shown that holographic storage devices might be constructed in practice [1,2]. Unfortunately, these “proof of principle” experiments have been performed at densities too low to fully evaluate the effects of material and system deficiencies on the achievable bit error rate at product performance levels.

© 1996 Optical Society of America