Abstract

Time domain optical data storage using stimulated photon echoes has significant potential as a high density, non-volatile optical storage technique. High fidelity storage times of days have been demonstrated t liquid helium temperatures, and potential densities and bit rates calculated to be >Tbit/cm2 and >Tbit/s respectively. Animportant aspect of a practical memory technique is selective data erasure. A method to do this by selectively overwriting a data bit with an identical bit, phase shifted 180 degrees was suggested [1] and demonstrated [2]. The requirement that the intiial and overwriting input pulses be identical places high constraints on the laser used. Initial attemps used pulsed lasers, where the shot to shot intensity variation of the laser limited the possible suppression.

© 1996 Optical Society of America