1. The Future in Data Storage
Holographic Optical Data Storage
The Future in Data Storage

2. Introduction
Holographic Optical Data Storage (HODS) or Holographic Data Storage System (HDDS)
The Revolutionary data storage technology
Uses images (holograms) rather than bits to store data
Images imposed in material
Uses a combination of Lasers & Optical materials to achieve this .
This is a Volumetric approach.

3. The Beginning
Pieter J. van Heerden first proposed the idea of holographic (three-dimensional) storage in the early 1960s.
A decade later, scientists at RCA Laboratories demonstrated the technology by recording 500 holograms in an iron-doped lithium-niobate crystal.
The advent of Semiconductor & magnetic memories stalled its research for much time but it is now picking up momentum.

4. Why Do We Need This?
“For Internet applications alone, industry estimates are that storage needs are doubling every 100 days”
-Nelson Diaz, Lucent Technologies
“Optoelectronics Industry and Technology Development Association projects that by the year 2010, a storage system serving an average LAN will need … 10 TB and a WAN server will require 100 TB to 1 petabyte …of storage”
- Red Herring

5. Overview of HODS

6. The Practical Setup

7. The Green Argon Laser
Laser light is a green nm line of an argon-ion laser.
The system is equipped with an argon (514.5-nm) or a krypton (676-nm) laser
Optical power delivered to the apparatus prior to the object/reference beam splitter is as much as mW .

8. What is SLM ? SLM - Spatial Light Modulator.
SLM consists 1-D or 2-D arrays of light modulating elements.
SLM converts the digital data 1’s or 0’s into a 2-D array of bright & dark spots.
SLM is used to imprint the data on the object beam.

9. About Lithium Niobate Crystal
Chemical Formula- LiNbO3.
It has high photorefractive sensitivity & stability.
It has trigonal structure.
Molecular weight
Band gap - 4eV

10. What is CCD ? CCD - Charge Coupled Device.
Its structure was proposed in 1969 by Boyle & Smith.
CCD is a light sensitive device.
CCD converts pixels in images into electric charge.
CCD contains a separate value for each colour.

11. Storage inside the Photosensitive Medium
Storage of one bit of information as a Hologram.
a) Superposition of spherical wave from one bit with a coherent plane wave reference beam forming an interference pattern.
b) Exposure of a photosensitive medium to the interference pattern.
c) Record of the interference grating, stored as changes in the properties of the medium.

12. Recording Data stream is sent to the SLM as 0’s and 1’s. Beam is split
Forms a “checkerboard” pattern
1’s transmit light, 0’s block light
Beam is split
Light passing through SLM is the signal (object) beam
Reflected beam is the reference beam
Beams interfere in the medium to produce hologram much like before

13. Recording by Figure

14. Reading Beam no longer split
Reference beam is diffracted off the recorded grating (hologram)
Reconstructs matrix
Projected using optic onto CCD
Converts into data stream

15. Reading by Figure

16. Impacts
The everyday user might not notice the impact other than more space on his/her computer.
Big benefactors are big business and internet
Parallel data storage and retrieval allows for very fast data excess for number crunching and experiments (much faster computation times).
Much faster data access for internet servers as well as much larger storage densities.
Cheaper cost per Megabyte once mainstream.
Data storage for libraries, documents and so forth will be cheaper and take up less space and access will be much faster.

17. Future Applications
Imagine the capability of 6,840 raw uncompressed high quality Video/TV hours, or 2,100,000 chest x-rays, or nearly 10,000,000 high-resolution images, or 30,000 four-drawer filing cabinets of documents or 20,000 DVD'S Worm's or 4,000 BLU-Ray Worm disk's on ONE 10 Terabyte 3.5 in. removable disc.

18. Future Applications

19. Long Term !
Eventually HODS’s may take over magnetic and optical devices all together
DVD’s with 10 terabytes on them !
Less need for compression techniques (depending on internet communications)
Even smaller computers (hard drive one of the largest components)
Less power to drive = longer lasting laptops

20. Market Prospects
Current storage memory market exceeds $100 billion dollars worldwide
$47 billion is solely hard disk, $42 billion magnetic tape drives, $6 billion optical disk
This is growing at 40% a year (1998)
HODS has the possibility of taking over this entire market
Can assimilate all these data storage types
Little to no competitive alternatives on the horizon

21. Who is Involved… InPhase Technologies, venture of Lucent Technologies
Exclusive purpose is to develop high-performance holographic data storage media
Seem to be leaders in viable product, near useable solution
Government and other participants donate $32 million for research
Large majority of research focused at Standford and IBM’s Almaden Research Facility

22. Interesting Facts
With predicted technology a 1cm3 laser cube is equal to:
- 6,944, MB floppy discs
- 14, MB CD-ROM’s
GB hard drives
25 million books of the Library of Congress(US)

23. Conclusion Built on technology that’s around for 40+ years
HODS may be the future of data storage
HUGE capacity, Very fast, Smaller
Parallel processing
Current storage methods nearing their fundamental limits of storage density
Stationary parts for some techniques
Meets the demand for a capacity hungry society
Large market and little new competition

24. Further Research/Bibliography

25. Thank you for listening to my presentation!
The future is here
The future is here !