HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY

PRESENTED BY
RAMAKRISHNA REDDY.K
Ramakrishna.kesari@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of holographic memory, a
developing three-dimensional data storage system for computers. Devices that use light to
store and read data have been the backbone of data storage for nearly two decades. In
early 1980’s CD’s (Compact Discs) revolutionarised the storage and in later part of 19th
century DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disc) were invented which improved the storage
capacity by storing 8.5GB of data on a single disc. These conventional storage mediums
meet today's storage needs, but storage technologies have to evolve to keep pace with
increasing consumer demand. CD’s, DVD’s and magnetic storage devices stores
information as bits. In order to increase storage capabilities we introduce a new storage
method called HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY.

Holographic memory uses total volume of recording medium for

storage unlike CD’s or DVD’s which use surface area only. When the blue-green argon
laser is fired, a beam splitter creates two beams. One beam, called the object or signal
beam, will go straight, bounce off one mirror and travel through a spatial-light modulator
(SLM). An SLM is a liquid crystal display (LCD) that shows pages of raw binary data as
clear and dark boxes. The information from the page of binary code is carried by the
signal beam around to the light-sensitive lithium-niobate crystal. Some systems use a
photopolymer in place of the crystal. A second beam, called the reference beam, shoots
out the side of the beam splitter and takes a separate path to the crystal. When the two
beams meet, the interference pattern that is created stores the data carried by the signal
beam in a specific area in the crystal -- the data is stored as a hologram. Holographic
memory offers the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized
crystal.

Keywords
Holographic Memory, Optical Memory, Spatial Multiplexing, Angular Multiplexing

1 INTRODUCTION
 With its omnipresence computers, all connected via the Internet, the
Information Age has led to an explosion of information available to users. The decreasing
costs of storing data, and the increasing storage capacities of the same small device
footprint, have been key enablers of this revolution. While current storage needs are
being met, storage technologies must continue to improve in order to keep pace with the
rapidly increasing demand.

However, both magnetic and conventional optical data storage

technologies, where individual bits are stored as distinct magnetic or optical changes on
the surface of a recording medium, are approaching physical limits beyond which
individual bits may be too small or too difficult to store. Storing information throughout
the volume of a medium—not just on its surface— offers an intriguing high-capacity
alternative.

Holographic data storage is a volumetric approach which, although

conceived decades ago, has made recent progress toward practicality with the appearance
of lower-cost enabling technologies, significant results from longstanding research
efforts, and progress in holographic recording materials. Holographic memory offers the
possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. A terabyte of
data equals 1,000 gigabytes, 1 million megabytes or 1 trillion bytes. Data from more than
1,000 CDs could fit on a holographic memory system. Most computer hard drives only
hold 10 to 40 GB of data, a small fraction of what a holographic memory system might
hold

This paper provides a description of Holographic data storage system

(HDSS), a three dimensional data storage system which has a fundamental advantage
over conventional read/write memory systems. A brief overview of properties of
holograms will be presented first. This will cover the way in which data can be stored in a
hologram with the diffraction of laser light. Applying these properties to computer
memory systems will follow, including the description of page data, a method in which
another dimension is added to the accessing of stored data. Error correction and
applications to computer systems are then covered, with the future of holographic
memory presented as a conclusion.

2 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF HDSS (Holographic Data Storage System)

 A hologram is a block or sheet of photosensitive material which
records the diffraction of two light sources. To create a hologram, laser light is first split
into two beams, a source beam and a reference beam. The source beam is then
manipulated and sent into the photosensitive material .Once inside this material, it
intersects the reference beam and the resulting diffraction of laser light is recorded on the
photosensitive material, resulting in a hologram. Once a hologram is recorded it can be
viewed with only the reference beam. The reference beam is projected into the hologram
at the exact angle and it was projected during recording. When this light hits the recorded
diffraction pattern the source beam is regenerated out of the refracted light. An exact
copy of the source beam is sent out of the hologram and can be read by optical sensors.

Fig. 1 Interference patterns for reading and writing into Holographic Memory

3 WORKING
3.1 RECORDING DATA ON MEDIUM

Light from a single laser beam is split into two beams, the signal
beam (which carries the data) and the reference beam. The hologram is formed where
these two beams intersect in the recording medium. The object beam, gets expanded so
that it fully illuminates a spatial light modulator (SLM). An SLM is simply an LCD panel
that displays a page of raw binary data as an array of clear or dark pixels. The object
beam finally interacts with the reference beam inside a photosensitive crystal. The
ensuing interference pattern--the substance of the hologram--gets stored as a web of
varying optical a chemical reaction occurs in the medium when the bright elements of the
signal beam intersect the reference beam, causing the hologram stored. By varying the
reference beam angle, wavelength, or media position many different holograms can be
recorded in the same volume of material. Characteristics inside this crystal

Fig. 2 Recording data on a Holographic Memory

The beam's angle is crucial, and it can't vary by more than a fraction
of a degree. This apparent flaw in the recording process is actually an asset. It's how
holographic storage achieves its high data densities. By changing either the angle of the
reference beam or its frequency, you can write additional data pages in to the same
volume of crystal. The dynamic range of the medium determines how many pages it can
hold reliably.

3.2 READING DATA FROM HOLOGRAM

 When reading out the data, the reference beam has to hit the crystal at
the same angle that's used in recording the page. To read out the data, the reference beam
again illuminates the crystal. The stored interference pattern diffracts the reference
beam's light so that it reconstructs the checkerboard image of the light or dark pixels. The
image is directed upon a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor array that reads the data in
parallel, and it instantly captures the entire digital page. The binary information can now
be read from this CCD and the originally stored data is retrieved. This parallel read out of
data provides holography with its fast data transfer rates.

Fig. 3 Reading data from a holographic memory

The success of holographic storage lies in the ability to accurately

focus the reference laser on the exact position within the crystal to retrieve that page
of .You would be unable to locate the data if there’s an error of even a thousandth of an
inch. Also, the crystals used in the fabrication of the storage element need to exhibit very
exacting optical characteristics to store the data correctly and there are very few
substances that adequately and economically meet these needs.

4 ADVANTAGES

HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc) offers several advantages over

traditional storage technology. HVDs can ultimately store more than 1 terabyte (TB) of
information -- that's 200 times more than a single-sided DVD and 20 times more than a
current double-sided Blue-ray. This is partly due to HVDs storing holograms in
overlapping patterns, while a DVD basically stores bits of information side-by-side.
HVDs also use a thicker recording layer than DVDs ---a HVD stores information in
almost the entire volume of the disc, instead of just a single, thin layer.

Fig. 4 DVD vs. HVD: Recording-layer depth

Fig. 5 Volumetric recording method

 Fig. 6 AN OVERVIEW OF A HVD (HOLOGRAPHIC VERSATILE DISC)

5 DISADVANTAGES

Manufacturing cost HDSS is very high and there is a lack of

availability of resources which are needed to produce HDSS. However, all the holograms
appear dimmer because their patterns must share the material's finite dynamic range. In
other words, the additional holograms alter a material that can support only a fixed
amount of change. Ultimately, the images become so dim that noise creeps into the read-
out operation, thus limiting the material's storage capacity.

A difficulty with the HDSS technology had been the destructive

readout. The re-illuminated reference beam used to retrieve the recorded information,
also excites the donor electrons and disturbs the equilibrium of the space charge field in a
manner that produces a gradual erasure of the recording. In the past, this has limited the
number of reads that can be made before the signal-to -noise ratio becomes too low.
Moreover, writes in the same fashion can degrade previous writes in the same region of
the medium. This restricts the ability to use the three-dimensional capacity of a
photorefractive for recording angle-multiplexed holograms. You would be unable to
locate the data if there’s an error of even a thousandth of an inch.

6 APPLICATIONS
  Data mining is one of the important applications.
 Data mining is the processes of finding patterns in large amounts of data.
 Data mining is used greatly in large databases which hold possible patterns which
can’t be distinguished by human eyes due to the vast amount of data.
 Another possible application of holographic memory is in petaflop computing.
 A petaflop is a thousand trillion floating point operations per second.
 The fast access extremely large amounts of data provided by holographic memory
could be utilized in petaflop architecture

CONCLUSIONS

The future of HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE SYSYEM is very

promising. The page access of data that HDSS creates will provide a window into next
generation computing by adding another dimension to stored data. Finding holograms in
personal computers might be a bit longer off, however. The large cost of high-tech optical
equipment would make small-scale systems implemented with HDSS impractical. It will
most likely be used in next generation supercomputers where cost is not as much of an
issue. Current magnetic storage devices remain far more cost effective than any other
medium on the market. As computer system evolve, it is, not unreasonable to believe that
magnetic storage will continue to do so. As mentioned earlier, however, these
improvements are not made on the conceptual level. The current storage in a personal
computer operates on the same principles used in the first magnetic data storage devices.
The parallel nature of HDSS has many potential gains on serial storage methods.
However, many advances in optical technology and photosensitive materials need to be
made before we find holograms in our computer systems.

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OE-Reports Number 187, July 1999