Holographic Data Storage: V1 Semester Holograhic Data Storage Dept of TE

Holographic data storage
PES
Institute Of Technology
SEMINAR
ON
HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE
Praveena Raj R USN: 1PI07TE076
For two credit course requirements of V Semester Course in Telecommunication Engineering

in the session jan-may2009
Carried out at
PESIT, Bengaluru
Under the guidance of
Mrs. Ashwini .R
Lecturer Telecom Department
PES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
100 Feet Ring Road, BSK III Stage, Bengaluru: 560085
V1 semester HOLOGRAHIC DATA STORAGE Dept Of TE

PES
Institute Of Technology
PES
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
100 Feet Ring Road, BSK III Stage, Bengaluru: 560085
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the seminar work titled “Holographic data storage ” is a bona fide work
carried out by
PraveenaRajR USN: 1PI07TE076
at PESIT Bengaluru
in fulfillment of the two credit course of V Semester Telecommunication Engineering during the
academic session jan-may 2010.
Signature of the guide Signature of the HOD
(Ms.Ashwini.R) (Prof. M Anuradha)
LecturerTelecomDepartment HOD Telecom Department
Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 2

ABSTRACT
Holographic memory storage is a technique that can store information at
high density inside crystals. It can store data up to 1Tb in a sugar cube
sized crystal. Data from more than 1000 CDs can fit into a holographic
memory System. . Holographic storage has the potential to become the
next generation of storage media. It is based on the principle of
holography. A Holographic Storage device is a Page oriented device that
writes and reads data, represented as a two dimensional array of spot
called a Page. Multiple pages are multiplexed holographically to create a
stack of pages; all in the Space normally required storing a single two
dimensional image.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
No significant achievement can be a solo performance especially when

starting a seminar from ground up. The seminar based on holographic data
storage has by no means been an exception. It took many very special
people to enable and support it. Here we would like to acknowledge their
precious co-operation and express our sincere gratitude to them.
Of foremost importance were the facilities provided by PESIT that made our
seminar possible, and we would like to thank the Principal
Mr.KV.Balasubramanyam Murthy and the H.O.D. Prof.M.Aunuradha for
setting up such a great working environment.
Our guide Ms.Ashwini.R.Nadager has been very supportive. It was her

encouragement that helped the project to start in its earliest and most
vulnerable stages.
The last to mention but no doubt the most important, we would like to thank
our family, classmates and friends for believing in us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER NO: TITLE PAGE
NO:
1. INTRODUCTION 6-7
1.1 HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
1.2 TECHNOLOGY BEHIND HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
2. HOLOGRAPHY 8-13
2.1 THEORY
2.2 RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS
2.3 RECORDING HOLOGRAM ON A COMPLEX OBJECT
2.4 MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR HOLOGRAPHY
3. HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE 14-22
3.1 WHAT IS HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE
3.2 DATA RECORDING
3.3 DATA READING
3.4 HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE MEDIA
3.5 LIMITATIONS OF HDD
3.6 ADVANTAGES OF HDD
3.7 APPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION 23
BIBLIOGRAPHY 24

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Holographic data storage is a potential replacement technology in the area

of high-capacity data storage currently dominated by magnetic and
conventional optical data storage. Magnetic and optical data storage devices
rely on individual bits being stored as distinct magnetic or optical changes
on the surface of the recording medium. Holographic data storage
overcomes this limitation by recording information throughout the volume of
the medium and is capable of recording multiple images in the same area
utilizing light at different angles.
Additionally, whereas magnetic and optical data storage records information

a bit at a time in a linear fashion, holographic storage is capable of recording
and reading millions of bits in parallel, enabling data transfer rates greater
than those attained by optical storage.
The first holographic storage products from In Phase Technologies will target
the professional archive and near-line storage markets, with WORM drives
and media. These initial products will have a capacity of 300 GB of
uncompressed data, with read and write transfer rates of 20 MB/s.
Subsequent generations of WORM devices will increase the capacity to 800
GB and the transfer rates to 80 MB/s and then to 1.6 TB and 120 MB/s
respectively
Brief History of Holographic Memory

1.1 HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
Using holograms as memory storage was first proposed by Pieter Heerden in

the 1960s. During the early 1970s, a group of scientists from TRCA
laboratories succeeded in storing 500 holograms using an iron doped lithium
niobate crystal. Moreover, they were also able to store five hundred fifty
high-resolution hologram images using a material made up of light sensitive
polymer. The high cost of the materials needed for this type of technology
as well as the rise of magnetic and optical drives shelved the project in the
end.
Now research for holographic memory systems has been reactivated since
the components needed for such a technology has become widely available
and cheaper. The laser system needed for the device to work, for instance,
has shrunk in size so it can easily fit in a conventional CD or DVD player.
Moreover, liquid crystal displays or LCDs which were in their infancy during
the initial research done on holographic memory systems are now more
advanced and quite a lot cheaper.
1.2TECHNOLOGY BEHIND HOLOGRAPHY MEMORY
The holographic memory system is made up of the following basic

components:
 a charge-coupled device
 lenses to focus the laser beams
 an LCD panel
 a photopolymer or lithium niobate crystal
 mirrors to direct the laser light
 beam splitters and an argon laser.

CHAPTER 2
HOLOGRAPHY
2.1 THEORY
Holography is often referred to as 3D photography, this is a misconception.
A better analogy is sound recording where the sound field is encoded in such
a way that it can later be reproduced. In holography, some of the light
scattered from an object or a set of objects falls on the recording medium. A
second light beam, known as the reference beam, also illuminates the
recording medium, so that interference occurs between the two beams. The
resulting light field is an apparently random pattern of varying intensity
which is the hologram. It can be shown that if the hologram is illuminated
by the original reference beam, a light field is diffracted by the reference
beam which is identical to the light field which was scattered by the object
or objects.
FIG1: Holographic recording process

Thus, someone looking into the hologram "sees" the objects even though
they are no longer present. There are a variety of recording materials which
can be used, including photographic film. A very simple hologram can be
made by superimposing two plan waves from the same light source. One
(the reference beam) hits the photographic plate normally and the other one
(the object beam) hits the plate at an angle θ. The relative phase between
the two beams varies across the photographic plate as 2π y sinθ/λ where y
is the distance along the photographic plate. The two beams interfere with
one another to form an interference pattern. The relative phase changes by
2π at intervals of d = λ/sinθ so the spacing of the interference fringes is
given by d. Thus, the relative phase of object and reference beam is
encoded as the maxima and minima of the fringe pattern.
When the photographic plate is developed, the fringe pattern acts as a

diffraction grating and when the reference beam is incident upon the
photographic plate, it is partly diffracted into the same angle θ at which the
original object beam was incident. Thus, the object beam has been
reconstructed. The diffraction grating created by the two waves interfering
has reconstructed the "object beam" and it is therefore a hologram as
defined above.

2.2HOLOGRAHIC RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS
FIG2.2Holographic reconstruction process
A slightly more complicated hologram can be made using a point source of

light as object beam and a plane wave as reference beam to illuminate the
photographic plate. An interference pattern is formed which in this case is in
the form of curves of decreasing separation with increasing distance from
the centre.
The photographic plate is developed giving a complicated pattern which can

be considered to be made up of a diffraction pattern of varying spacing.
When the plate is illuminated by the reference beam alone, it is diffracted by
the grating into different angles which depend on the local spacing of the
pattern on the plate. It can be shown that the net effect of this is to
reconstruct the object beam, so that it appears that light is coming from a
point source behind the plate, even when the source has been removed. The
light emerging from the photographic plate is identical to the light that
emerged from the point source that used to be there. An observer looking

into the plate from the other side will "see" a point source of light whether
the original source of light is there or not.
This sort of hologram is effectively a concave lens, since it "converts" a

plane wave front into a divergent wave front. It will also increase the
divergence of any wave which is incident on it in exactly the same way as a
normal lens does. Its focal length is the distance between the point source
and the plate.
2.3 RECORDING HOLOGRAM ON COMPLEX OBJECT
To record a hologram of a complex object, a laser beam is first split into two
separate beams of light using a beam splitter of half-silvered glass or a
birefringent material. One beam illuminates the object, reflecting its image
onto the recording medium as it scatters the beam. The second (reference)
beam illuminates the recording medium directly.
According to diffraction theory, each point in the object acts as a point

source of light. Each of these point sources interferes with the reference
beam, giving rise to an interference pattern. The resulting pattern is the
sum of a large number (strictly speaking, an infinite number) of point source
+reference beam interference patterns.
When the object is no longer present, the holographic plate is illuminated by

the reference beam. Each point source diffraction grating will diffract part of
the reference beam to reconstruct the wave front from its point source.
These individual wave fronts add together to reconstruct the whole of the
object beam.

The viewer perceives a wave front that is identical to the scattered wave
front of the object illuminated by the reference beam, so that it appears to
him or her that the object is still in place. This image is known as a "virtual"
image as it is generated even though the object is no longer there. The
direction of the light source seen illuminating the virtual image is that of the
original illuminating beam. Other holograms, such as rainbow and Denisyuk
holograms, are more complex but have similar principles.
2.4MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR HOLOGRAPHY
A light wave can be modelled by a complex number U which represents the

electric or magnetic field of the light wave. The amplitude and phase of the
light are represented by the absolute value and angle of the complex
number. The object and reference waves at any point in the holographic
system are given by UO and UR. The combined beam is given be UO + UR.
The energy of the combined beams is proportional to the square of
magnitude of the electric wave:
If a photographic plate is exposed to the two beams, and then developed, its
transmittance, T, is proportional to the light energy which was incident on
the plate, and is given by

where k is a constant. When the developed plate is illuminated by the

reference beam, the light transmitted through the plate, UH is
It can be seen that UH has four terms. The first of these is kUO, since URUR*
is equal to one, and this is the re-constructed object beam. The second term
represents the reference beam whose amplitude has been modified by UR2.
The third also represents the reference beam which has had its amplitude
modified by UO2; this modification will cause the reference beam to be
diffracted around its central direction. The fourth term is known as the
"conjugate object beam." It has the reverse curvature to the object beam
itself, and forms a real image of the object in the space beyond the
holographic plate.
Early holograms had both the object and reference beams illuminating the
recording medium normally, which meant that all the four beams emerging
from the hologram, were superimposed on one another. The off-axis
hologram was developed by Leith and Upatnieks to overcome this problem.
The object and reference beams are incident at well-separated angles onto
the holographic recording medium and the virtual, real and reference wave
fronts all emerge at different angles, enabling the re-constructed object
beam to be imaged clearly

CHAPTER 3
HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE
3.1WHAT IS HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE
A Holographic Storage Device is a page oriented device that writes and

reads data, represented as a two dimensional array of spot called a page.
Multiple pages are multiplexed holographic ally to create a stack of Pages;
all in the space normally required storing a single two dimensional image.
Holography breaks through the density limits of conventional storage by
going beyond recording only on the surface to recording through the full
depth of the medium .Unlike other technologies that record one data bit at a
time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in
parallel with a single flash of light. This enables transfer rates significantly
higher than current optical-storage devices.
Combining high storage densities and fast transfer rates, with durable
reliable low-cost media, holography is poised to become a compelling choice
for next-generation storage and content distribution needs.
In addition, the flexibility of the technology allows for the development of a
wide variety of holographic storage products that range from handheld
devices for consumers to storage products for the enterprise. Imagine 2 GB
of data on a postage stamp, 20 GB on a credit card or 300 GB on a disk the
size of a DVD.

3.2 DATA RECORDING

Light from a single blue-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 (see fig 3.1)
The process for encoding data onto the signal beam is accomplished by a
device called a spatial light modulator (SLM). The SLM translates the
electronic data of 0s and 1s into an optical "checkerboard" pattern of light
and dark pixels. The data is arranged in an array (or page) of approximately
one million bits. The exact number of bits is determined by the pixel count
of the SLM.
Fig3.1 recording holographic data

At the point of intersection of the reference beam and the data-carrying
signal beam, the hologram is recorded in a light sensitive storage medium. A

chemical reaction occurs in the medium when the bright elements of the
signal beam intersect the reference beam, causing the hologram to be
stored. By varying the reference-beam angle, wavelength or media position,
many different holograms can be recorded in the same volume of material.
Each data page is located at a unique address within the material, and
several hundred pages of data, each with their own unique address, are
recorded in the same location of the medium. A collection of data pages is
referred to as a book. In Phase’s patented polytrophic recording technique
enables many holograms to be stored in the same volume of material by
overlapping not only pages, but also books of data. This dramatically
increases the storage density.
3.3 READING A DATA

In order to read the data, the reference beam deflects off the hologram,
thus reconstructing the stored information as shown in (fig 3.2) this
hologram is then projected onto a detector that reads the data in parallel.
This parallel readout of data provides holography with its fast transfer rates.

Fig 3.2 reading data
3.4 HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE MEDIA

The major challenge to implementing holographic storage has been the
development of a suitable storage medium. The tapestry storage medium
from in phase technologies satisfies the many stringent criteria for a viable
storage material, including high dynamic range, high photosensitivity,
dimensional stability, optical clarity, manufacturability, on-destructive
readout, and thickness, environmental and thermal stability.
In addition to developing a new class of materials, In Phase Technologies
also developed the Zero Wave manufacturing process, which enables the
cost-effective fabrication of optically-flat media. This makes the media price
competitive for mass consumption. There are very important advantages of
Tapestry holographic storage media over conventional tape. Not only do the
media possess a very long 50-year lifetime but it is extremely durable and
does not require any special handling procedures. Tape is subject to the

wear of multiple read cycles as the tape comes into physical contact with
“read” heads and other mechanical components in the tape path. In
contrast, Tapestry media can be read millions of times since the data is read
by light and there is never any mechanical contact.
Furthermore, Tapestry media requires no special handling and can be stored
in standard office environments. Tape must be stored in recommended
temperature and humidity conditions, kept evenly wound, stored upright,
wound and rewound periodically, protected from magnetic fields and should
be allowed to adapt to environmental changes (up to 24 hours) before use.
3.5 THE LIMITATIONS OF HDD

For several years, hard disk drives were able to increase capacity at a rapid
and steady pace. HDD density doubled at the rate of approximately every 18
to 24 months .As densities increased, prices decreased, and it was hoped
that HDDs would eventually become inexpensive enough to provide
universal storage for all applications. However, as HDD densities have grown
continually higher, the rate of growth has decreased significantly. This has

occurred even as the HDD industry has shifted from longitudinal recording to
perpendicular recording. Clearly, the approach of storing data on the surface
of a medium by packing bits ever more closely together is beginning to
reach its practical limits. In contrast, In Phase Technologies has recently
demonstrated increases in storage densities, which match or exceed the
maximum historical increases seen with HDDs. Holographic storage is clearly
the path to the future.
3.6 ADVANTAGES OF HOLOGRAHIC DATA STORAGE
Aside from having a tremendous amount of storage space for data,

holographic memory systems also have the ability to retrieve data very
quickly, up to a 1 gigabyte per second transfer rate. We like other forms of
optical data storage holographic memory uses lasers to encode data in the
medium. However, instead of using a series of pits and grooves to store
data, as in a compact disc, holographic memory is encoded as an
interference pattern between two lasers. These two lasers are referred to as
a reference beam and the signal beam. The signal beam holds the data,
while the reference beam usually stays constant. Because writing to the disc
creates a hologram, a complex 3D pattern in the crystal, all it takes is
shining a reference beam at the disc at a precise angle for the original image
to be projected again.
Holographic memory technology circumvents the limitations on conventional

optical memory storage technologies by making use of inherently three-
dimensional holography to encode data, rather than conventional 2D read-
and-write-by-laser-beam. This means that the entire volume of the crystal
can theoretically be used to encode holographic memory data, though in

practice this is not possible. Still, any degree of three-dimensionality is a

great advantage for an optical memory storage technology, enough to put
holographic memory leaps and bounds ahead of DVD and Blue-Ray
technology.
Multiple holograms can be layered on top of one another in the same

medium, a quality known as multiplexing. By changing the angle of the
reference beam, an entirely new image can be encoded and subsequently
projected. Each tiny change to the angle of the crystal can give rise to an
entirely new reconstituted holographic image, almost up to the limit of the
atoms of the crystal itself to hold information. Holographic memory is a
technology that is different-in-kind from what came before it.
Devices that use light to store and read data have been the backbone of
data storage for nearly two decades. Compact discs revolutionized data
storage in the early 1980s, allowing multi-megabytes of data to be stored on
a disc that has a diameter of a mere 12 centimetres and a thickness of
about 1.2 millimetres. In 1997, an improved version of the CD, called a
digital versatile disc (DVD), was released, which enabled the storage of full-
length movies on a single disc.
3.7APPLICATIONS

 ART:
Early on artists saw the potential of holography as a medium and gained

access to science laboratories to create their work. Holographic art is
often the result of collaborations between scientists and artists, although
some holographers would regard themselves as both an artist and
scientist.
 HOLGRAPHIC INTERFEROMENTRY:
Holographic interferometer (HI) is a technique which enables static

and dynamic displacements of objects with optically rough surfaces to
be measured to optical interferometric precision (i.e. to fractions of a
wavelength of light). It can also be used to detect optical path length
variations in transparent media, which enables, for example, fluid flow
to be visualised and analysed. It can also be used to generate
contours representing the form of the surface.
 ELECTRON HOLOGRAPY:
Is the application of holography techniques to electron waves rather

than light waves. Electron holography was invented by Dennis Gabor
to improve the resolution and avoid the aberrations of the
transmission electron microscope. Today it is commonly used to study
electric and magnetic fields in thin films, as magnetic and electric
fields can shift the phase of the interfering wave passing through the
sample. The principle of electron holography can also be applied to
interference lithography.

 ACOUSTIC HOLOGRAHY:
Is a method used to estimate the sound field near a source by

measuring acoustic parameters away from the source via an array of
pressure and/or particle velocity transducers. Measuring techniques
included within acoustic holography are becoming increasingly popular
in various fields, most notably those of transportation, vehicle and
aircraft design, and NVH. The general idea of acoustic holography has
led to different versions such as near-field acoustic holography (NAH)
and statistically optimal near-field acoustic holography (SONAH). For
audio rendition, the wave field synthesis is the most related procedure
CONCLUSION

Tomorrow’s Memories Maybe Made of Holograms. Holographic technology

will give us ‘Holovideo’: A system that produces three dimensional
holographic images in real time. Holographic storage is the best type of data
storage technology that can meet the requirements of today’s growing
databases. Holographic data storage is a technology whose capacity dwarfs
even that of optical disks, while giving you faster access to your data.
Holographic data storage although conceived decades ago, has made recent
progress toward practicality. In addition, it has shown the capability of rapid
parallel search through the stored data via associative retrieval. So it might
be the successor of the DVD’s and can lead to new devices such as content
addressable database machines.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

The data is obtained from the internet. Taken from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_data_storage .The data is also
obtained from the book by name holography. The book holographic data
storage.

Holographic Data Storage: V1 Semester Holograhic Data Storage Dept of TE

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Holographic Data Storage: V1 Semester Holograhic Data Storage Dept of TE

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Holographic data storage

HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE

Praveena Raj R USN: 1PI07TE076

For two credit course requirements of V Semester Course in Telecommunication Engineering

Under the guidance of

Lecturer Telecom Department

PES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

100 Feet Ring Road, BSK III Stage, Bengaluru: 560085

V1 semester HOLOGRAHIC DATA STORAGE Dept Of TE

100 Feet Ring Road, BSK III Stage, Bengaluru: 560085

PraveenaRajR USN: 1PI07TE076

Signature of the guide Signature of the HOD

(Ms.Ashwini.R) (Prof. M Anuradha)

LecturerTelecomDepartment HOD Telecom Department

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 2

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 3

No significant achievement can be a solo performance especially when

Our guide Ms.Ashwini.R.Nadager has been very supportive. It was her

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 4

1.1 HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY

1.2 TECHNOLOGY BEHIND HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY

2.2 RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS

2.3 RECORDING HOLOGRAM ON A COMPLEX OBJECT

2.4 MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR HOLOGRAPHY

3. HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE 14-22

3.1 WHAT IS HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE

3.2 DATA RECORDING

3.3 DATA READING

3.4 HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE MEDIA

3.5 LIMITATIONS OF HDD

3.6 ADVANTAGES OF HDD

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 5

Holographic data storage is a potential replacement technology in the area

Additionally, whereas magnetic and optical data storage records information

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 6

1.1 HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY

Using holograms as memory storage was first proposed by Pieter Heerden in

1.2TECHNOLOGY BEHIND HOLOGRAPHY MEMORY

The holographic memory system is made up of the following basic

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 7

FIG1: Holographic recording process

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 8

When the photographic plate is developed, the fringe pattern acts as a

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 9

2.2HOLOGRAHIC RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS

FIG2.2Holographic reconstruction process

A slightly more complicated hologram can be made using a point source of

The photographic plate is developed giving a complicated pattern which can

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 10

This sort of hologram is effectively a concave lens, since it "converts" a

2.3 RECORDING HOLOGRAM ON COMPLEX OBJECT

According to diffraction theory, each point in the object acts as a point

When the object is no longer present, the holographic plate is illuminated by

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 11

2.4MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR HOLOGRAPHY

A light wave can be modelled by a complex number U which represents the

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 12

where k is a constant. When the developed plate is illuminated by the

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 13

3.1WHAT IS HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE

A Holographic Storage Device is a page oriented device that writes and

Dept of TE, PESIT Jan-May 2010 Page | 14