Holographic Multiplexing for 3D Optical Memory

The increasing demand for larger memory capacity has led to the exploration of volume data storage in optical materials with theoretical capacities of 10 to the 13th power bits/cm cubed. However, an important technical barrier is the design of an input/output architecture to read and write to the op...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Domash, L, Ryan, V
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
DATA RATE
Electrooptical and Optoelectronic Devices
HIGH RATE
HOLOGRAMS
Holography
INPUT OUTPUT PROCESSING
MULTIPLEXING
OPTICAL DATA
OPTICAL STORAGE
PARALLEL PROCESSORS
PROTOTYPES
Radio Communications
THREE DIMENSIONAL
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Summary:The increasing demand for larger memory capacity has led to the exploration of volume data storage in optical materials with theoretical capacities of 10 to the 13th power bits/cm cubed. However, an important technical barrier is the design of an input/output architecture to read and write to the optical 3D memory at very high speed. During Phase I of this effort, we have experimentally demonstrated the operation of a unique optical lock-in instrument that can play a key role in accessing optical memories at high data rates. This optical lock-in detector is capable of demultiplexing a highly complex wavefront consisting of a number of holograms that have been combined on a single light beam. Using the optical lock-in detector, it is possible to demultiplex and recover any individual hologram using optical mixing in a photorefractive medium with the appropriate modulation applied to the reference optical beam. For Phase Ii a prototype optical memory system is proposed, including highly parallel input/output techniques, a cache memory for faster access, and a unique photorefractive material for optical data storage. At least one key component of this optical memory system, an optical beamlet array generator, is a likely candidate for Phase III development by Foster- Miller and Polaroid Corporation.