A Seminar Report on

Prepared by : Prajapati Jay Ishwarlal

Roll No. : 58

Class : B.E.IV (Information Technology )

Semester : 7th Semester

Year : 2010-2011

Guided by : Prof. Nishi Shethna

Department
Of
Information Technology Engineering
Sarvajanik College of Engineering & Technology
Dr R.K. Desai Road,
Athwalines, Surat - 395001,
India.
 Sarvajanik College of
Engineering & Technology
Dr R.K. Desai Road,
Athwalines, Surat - 395001,
India.

Department
Of
Information Technology Engineering

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Seminar report entitled Holographic Data
Storage System is prepared & presented by Mr. Prajapati Jay
Iswarlal Class Roll No 58 of B.E.IV Sem VII Information
Technology Engineering during year 2010-2011. His work is

satisfactory.

Signature of Guide Head of Department

Information tech. Engineering

Signature of Jury Members

SR.NO TOPICS PAGE NO
1 INTRODUCTION 01

2 HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHY 02

3 WORKING OF HDSS 03
3.1 RECORDING DATA ON MEDIUM
3.2 READING DATA ON MEDIUM

4 IMPLEMENTATION OF HDS 05

5 STORAGE OF DATA 08
5.1 HARDWARE OF HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE
5.2 STORAGE OF DATA
5.3 ERROR CORRECTION
5.3.1 RECORDING ERRORS
6 ADVANTAGE OF HDSS 13

7 DISADVANTAGE OF HDSS 14

8 APPLICATIONS 19
8.1 HOLOGRAPHY VERSTILE DISK
8.2 BRIEF HISTORY
8.3 WORKING PRINCIPAL
8.4 FEATURES
8.5 MORE ON HVD
8.6 COMPARSION
8.7 POSSIBLE APPLICATION
CONCLUSION 20

BIBLOGRAPHY 21
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and deep sense of gratitude to my guide
Prof. Nishi Shethna for imparting me valuable guidance during the preparation of this seminar
report. He helped me in solving my doubts and suggesting many references.

I would also like to thank our DIC Prof. Meta Parikh and other staff members, who
helped me by giving valuable suggestions and encouragement which not only helped me in
preparing this seminar report but also in having a better insight in this field.

Lastly, I express my deep sense of gratitude towards my colleagues and also those who have
directly or indirectly helped me while preparing this Report.
 ABSTRACT

Holographic memory is a technique that can store information at high density inside crystals
Holographic memory is developing technology that has promised to revolutionalise the storage
systems. 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
Conventional memories use only the surface to store the data. But holographic data storage systems
use the volume to store data. It has more advantages than conventional storage systems. It is based
on the principle of Holography.

This paper provides a description of Holographic data storage system, 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. Applications to
computer systems are then covered, with the future of holographic memory presented as a
conclusion.
Chapter:- 1 :- INTRODUCTION

Each time you watch a fast-paced DVD movie or pull down a piece of information
from the Internet or even access the ATM at the corner of your street , you are actually
tapping into large repositories of digital information. The hard disk, the mainstay of personal
and corporate storage, has faithfully obeyed the exponential law. This has happened largely
due to increases in aerial density, that is, how many bits are crammed into a square inch.
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.

The First step in understanding holographic memory is to understand what "holographic"

means. Holography is a method of recording patterns of light to produce a three-dimensional
object. These patterns of light are called a hologram. The recorded patterns of light are called
hologram memory systems.

Holographic memory is a technique that can store information at high density inside crystals
or photopolymers. As current storage techniques such as DVD reach the upper limit of possible
data density(due to the diffraction limited size of the writing beams), holographic storage has the
potential to become the next generation of storage media. The advantage of this type of data
storage is that the volume of the recording media is used instead of just the surface.
Chapter:- 2 :- HISTORY OF HOLOGRAPHY

The theory of holography was developed by Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian physicist, in the year
1947. His theory was originally intended to increase the resolving power of electron microscopes
Gabor proved his theory not with an electron beam, but with a light beam. The result was the first
hologram ever made. The early holograms were legible but plagued with many imperfections
because Gabor did not have the correct light to make crisp clear holograms as we can today Gabor
need LASER Light. In the 1960s two engineers from the University of Michigan Emmett Leith and
Juries Upatnieks, developed a new device which produced a three dimensional image of an object.
Building on the discoveries of Gabor, they produced the diffuse light hologram.

Today, we can see holograms, or 3-D images, on credit cards, magazine covers, art galleries.
Yet this unique method of capturing information with lasers-the science of holography-has many
more applications in the industrial world and is on the verge of revolutionizing data-storage
technology as we know it.
Chapter:- 3 WORKING OF HDSS
(HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE SYSTEM)

3.1 RECORDING DATA ON MEDIUM

Creating holograms is achieved by means of two coherent beams of light split from
one laser source, one being the reference beam and the other the signal beam. When both these
beams interfere with one another, a resulting interference pattern is formed which encompasses the
pattern both in amplitude & phase information of the two beams. When an appropriate
photorefractive material is placed at the point of interference, the interference patterns are recorded
inside the material. 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.

FIG : HOW DATA IS RECORDED ON A MEDIUM

3.2 READING DATA ON MEDIUM

When the reference beam illuminates the material in the absence of the signal beam, the
hologram causes the light to be diffracted in the same direction of the initial signal beam and all
the information of the original signal beam is reconstructed.

FIG : HOW DATA IS READ FROM HOLOGRAM

Chapter:- 4 IMPLEMENTATION OF HDS

A holographic data storage system consists of a recording medium, an optical recording

system, a photo detector array. A beam of coherent light is split into a reference beam and a signal
beam which are used to record a hologram into the recording medium. The recording medium is
usually a photo refractive crystal.

A ‘hologram’ is simply the three-dimensional interference pattern of the intersection of the

reference and signal beams are perpendicular to each other. This interference pattern is imprinted
into the crystal as regions of positive and negative charges. To retrieve the stored hologram, a beam
of light that has the same wavelength and angle of incidence as the reference beam is sent into the
crystal and the resulting diffraction pattern is used to reconstruct the pattern of the signal beam.
Many different holograms may be stored in the same crystal volume by changing the angle of
incidence of reference beam.

FIG : IMPLEMENTATION OF HDS

 The most common holographic recording system uses laser light, a beam splitter to divide
the laser light into reference beam and signal beam, various lenses and mirrors to redirect the light, a
photo reactive crystal, and an array of photo detectors around the crystal to receive the holographic
data. To record a hologram, a beam laser light is split into two beams by a mirror. These two beams
then become the reference and signal beams. The signal beam interacts with an object and the light
that is reflected by the object intersects the reference beam at right angles. The resulting interference
pattern contains all the information necessary to recreate the image of the object after suitable
processing. The interference pattern is recorded on to a photo reactive material and may be retrieved
at a latter time by using a beam that is identical to the reference beam. This is possible because the
hologram has the property that if it is illuminated by either of the beams used to record it, the
hologram causes light to be diffracted in the direction of the second beam that was used to
record it, there by recreating the reflected image of the object if the reference beam was used
to illuminate the hologram. So, the reflected must be transformed into a real image with mirrors
and lenses that can be sent to the laser detector array.

In the memory hierarchy, holographic memory lies somewhere between RAM and magnetic
storage in terms of data transfer rates, storage capacity, and data access times.

Table 1: The table shows to next the comparison of access time, data transfer rates , and
storage capacity for three types of memory; holographic, RAM, and magnetic disk

Storage Medium Access Time Data Transfer Rate Storage Capacity

Holography Memory 2.4 ns 10 GB/s 400 Mbits/cm²

Main Memory(RAM) 10-40 ns 5 MB/s 4.0 Mbits/cm²

Magnetic Disk 8.3 ms 5-20 MB/s 100 Mbits/cm²

 Holographic memory has an access time somewhere between main memory and magnetic
disk, a data transfer rate that is an order of magnitude better than both main memory and magnetic
disk, and a storage capacity that is higher than both main memory and magnetic disk. Certainly if the
issues of hologram decay and interference are resolved, then holographic memory could become a
part of the memory hierarchy, or take the place of magnetic disk much as magnetic disk has
displaced magnetic tape for most applications.
Chapter:- 5 STORAGE OF DATA

5.1 HARDWARE FOR HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE

Fig 5.a shows the most important hardware components in a holographic storage system. the
SLM used to imprint data on the object beam, two lenses for imaging the data onto a matched
detector array, a storage material for recording volume holograms, and a reference beam intersecting
the object beam in the material. What is not shown in Fig 5.a is the laser source, beam-forming
optics for collimating the laser beam, beam splitters for dividing the laser beam into two parts, stages
for aligning the SLM and detector array, shutters for blocking the two beams when needed, and
wave plates for controlling polarization.

(Fig 5.a)
 Assuming that holograms will be angle-multiplexed, a beam-steering system directs the
reference beam to the storage material. Wavelength multiplexing has some advantages over angle-
multiplexing, but the fast tunable laser sources at visible wavelengths that would be needed do not
yet exist. The optical system shown in Fig 5.a with two lenses separated by the sum of their focal
lengths, is called the “4-f” configuration, since the SLM and detector array turn out to be four focal
lengths apart. Other imaging systems such as the Fresnel configuration can also be used, but the 4-f
system allows the high numerical apertures needed for high density. In addition, since each lens
takes a spatial Fourier transform in two dimensions, he hologram stores the Fourier transform of the
SLM data, which is then Fourier-transformed again upon readout by the second lens. This has
several advantages: Point defects on the storage material do not lead to lost bits, but result in a slight
loss in signal-to-noise ratio at all pixels; and the storage material can be removed and replaced in an
offset position, yet the data can still be reconstructed correctly.

5.2 STORAGE OF DATA

With its omnipresent computers, all connected via the Internet, the Information Age has led
to an explosion of information available to users. The decreasing cost of storing data, and the
increasing storage capacities of the same small device footprint, has 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 are cording
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.

In holographic data storage, an entire page of information is stored at once as an optical

interference pattern within a thick, photosensitive optical material. This is done by intersecting two
coherent laser beams within the storage material. The first, called the object beam, contains the
information to be stored, the second, called the reference beam, is designed to be simple to
reproduce for example, a simple collimated beam with a planar wave front. The resulting optical
interference pattern causes chemical and physical changes in the photosensitive medium. A replica
of the interference pattern is stored as a change in the absorption, refractive index, or thickness of
the photosensitive medium. When the stored interference grating is illuminated with one of the two
waves that was used during recording some of this incident light is diffracted by the stored grating in
such a fashion that the other wave is reconstructed. Illuminating the stored grating with the reference
wave reconstructs the object wave, and vice versa. Interestingly, a backward-propagating or phase-
conjugate reference wave, illuminating the stored grating from the “back” side, reconstructs an
object wave that also propagates backward toward its original source.

A large number of these interference gratings or patterns can be superimposed in the same
thick piece of media and can be accessed independently, as long as they are distinguishable by the
direction or the spacing of the gratings. Such separation can be accomplished by changing the angle
between the object and reference wave or by changing the laser wavelength. Any particular data
page can then be read out independently by illuminating the stored gratings with the reference wave
that was used to store that page. Because of the thickness of the hologram, this reference wave is
diffracted by the interference patterns in such a fashion that only the desired object beam is
significantly reconstructed and imaged on an electronic camera. The theoretical limits for the storage
density of this technique are around tens of terabits per cubic centimeter. In addition to high storage
density, holographic data storage promises fast access times, because the laser beams can be moved
rapidly without inertia, unlike the actuators in disk drives. With the inherent parallelism of its page
wise storage and retrieval, a very large compound data rate can be reached by having a large number
of relatively slow, and therefore low-cost, parallel channels.

The data to be stored are imprinted onto the object beam with a pixilated input device called
a spatial light modulator (SLM); typically, this is a liquid crystal panel similar to those on laptop
computers or in modern camcorder viewfinders. To retrieve data without error, the object beam must
contain a high-quality imaging system one capable of directing this complex optical wave front
through the recording medium, where the wave front is stored and then later retrieved, and then onto
a pixilated camera chip (Fig 5.a) image of the data page at the camera must be as close as possible to
perfect. Any optical aberrations in the imaging system or misfocus of the detector array would
spread energy from one pixel to its neighbors. Optical distortions or errors in magnification will
move a pixel of the image off its intended receiver, and either of these problems will introduce errors
in the retrieved data. To avoid having the imaging system dominate the overall system performance,
near-perfect optics would appear to be unavoidable, which of course would be expensive. However,
the above-mentioned readout of phase-conjugated holograms provides a partial solution to this
problem. Here the reconstructed data page propagates backward through the same optics that was
used during the recording, which compensates for most shortcomings of the imaging system.
However, the detect the or and spatial light modulator must still be properly aligned.
 A rather unique feature of holographic data storage is associative retrieval. Imprinting a
partial or search data pattern on the object beam and illuminating the stored holograms reconstructs
all of the reference beams that were used to store data. The intensity that is diffracted by each of the
stored interference gratings into the corresponding reconstructed reference beam is proportional to
the similarity between the search pattern and the content of that particular data page. By
determining, for example, which reference beam has the highest intensity and then reading the
corresponding data page with this reference beam, the closest match to the search pattern can be
found without initially knowing its address.

Because of all of these advantages and capabilities, holographic storage has provided an
intriguing alternative to conventional data storage techniques for three decades. However, it is the
recent availability of relatively low-cost components, such as liquid crystal displays for SLMs and
solid-state camera chips from video camcorders for detector arrays, which has led to the current
interest in creating practical holographic storage devices.. A team of scientists from the IBM
Research Division have been involved in exploring holographic data storage, partially as a partner in
the DARPA-initiated consortia on holographic data storage systems (HDSS) and on photorefractive
information storage materials.

5.3 ERROR CORRECTION

It is inevitable that storing massive amounts of data in a small volume will be error prone.
Factors exist in both the recording and retrieval of information which will be covered in the
following subsections, respectively. In order for holographic memory systems to be practical in next
generation computer systems, a reliable form of error control needs to be created.

5.3.1 RECORDING ERRORS

When data is recorded in holographic medium, certain factors can lead to erroneously
recorded data. One major factor is the electronic noise generated by laser beams. When a laser beam
is split up, the generated light bleeds into places where light was meant to be blocked out. Areas
where zero light is desired might have minuscule amounts of laser light present, which mutates its
bit representation. For example, if too much light gets recorded into this zero area representing a
binary 0, an erroneous change to a binary 1 might occur. Changes in both the quality of the laser
beam and recording material are being researched, but these improvements must take into
consideration the cost-effectiveness of a holographic memory system. These limitations to current
laser beam and photosensitive technology are some of the main factors for the delay of practical
holographic memory systems.
Chapter:- 6 ADVANTAGES OF HDSS

 With three-dimensional recording and parallel data readout, holographic memories can
outperform existing optical storage techniques. In contrast to the currently available storage
strategies, holographic mass memory simultaneously offers high data capacity and short data
access time.

 Holographic data storage has the unique ability to locate similar features stored within a
crystal instantly. A data pattern projected into a crystal from the top searches thousands of
stored holograms in parallel. The holograms diffract the incoming light out of the side of the
crystal, with the brightest outgoing beams identifying the address of the data that most
closely resemble the input pattern. This parallel search capability is an inherent property of
holographic data storage and allows a database to be searched by content.

 Because the interference patterns are spread uniformly throughout the material, it endows
holographic storage with another useful capability: high reliability. While a defect in the
medium for disk or tape storage might garble critical data, a defect in a holographic medium
doesn't wipe out information. Instead, it only makes the hologram dimmer.

 No rotation of medium is required as in the case of other storage devices. It can reduce threat
of piracy since holograms can’t be easily replicated.

 Two-dimensional data saving systems such as CDs and DVD record and retrieve flies in a
serial fashion one bit at a time. Holographic data systems retain and retrieve data in parallel,
a total page of files at a time.

 The interface of holography and robotics may make "holobots" that learn through Creative
identification of useful patterns in big quantities of files.
Chapter:- 7 DISADVANTAGES OF HDSS

 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.
Chapter:- 8 APPLICATIONS

8.1 HOLOGRAPHIC VERSATILE DISC

HVD (holographic Versatile Disc), a holographic storage media, is an advanced optical disc
that’s presently in the development stage. Polaroid scientist J. van Heerden was the first to come up
with the idea for holographic three-dimensional storage media in 1960. An HVD would be a
successor to today’s Blue-ray and HDDVD technologies. It can transfer data at the rate of 1 Gigabit
per second. The technology permits over 10 kilobits of data to be written and read in parallel with a
single flash. The disc will store up to 3.9 terabyte (TB) of data on a single optical disk. Holographic
data storage, a potential next generation storage technology, offers both high storage density and fast
readout rate. In this article, I discuss the physical origin of these attractive technology features and
the components and engineering required to realize them. I conclude by describing the current state
of holographic storage research and development efforts in the context of ongoing improvement to
established storage technologies
8.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF HVD

Although holography was conceived in the late 1940s, it was not considered a potential
storage technology until the development of the laser in the 1960s. The resulting rapid development
of holography for displaying 3-D images led researchers to realize that holograms could also store
data at a volumetric density of as much as 1/ where is the wave-length of the light beam used. Since
each data page is retrieved by an array of photo detectors, rather than bi-by-bit, the holographic
scheme promises fast readout rates as well as high density. If a thousand holograms, each containing
a million pixels, could be retrieved every second, for instance, then the output data rate would reach
1 Gigabit per second.

In the early 1990s, interest in volume-holographic data storage was rekindled by the
availability of devices that could display and detect 2-D pages, including charge coupled devices
(CCD), complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) detector chips and small liquid-crystal
panels. The wide availability of these devices was made possible by the commercial success of
digital camera and video projectors. With these components in hand, holographic-storages
researchers have begun to demonstrate the potential of their technology in the laboratory. By using
the volume of the media, researchers have experimentally demonstrated that data can be stored at
equivalent area densities of nearly 400 bits/sq. micron. A readout rate of 10 gigabit per second has
also been achieved in the laboratory.

8.3 WORKING PRINCIPAL OF HVD

 THREE BASIC PRINCIPAL

1. HVD uses a technology called 'collinear holography,’ In which two laser rays,one
blue-green and one red, are collimated into a single beam
2. The blue-green laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a
holographic layer near the top of the disc while the red laser is used as the reference
beam and to read servo information from a regular CD-style aluminum layer near the
bottom.
3. Servo information is used to monitor the position of the read head over the disc,
similar to the head, track, and sector information on a conventional hard disk drive
8.4 FEATURES OF HVD

 Data transfer rate: 1 gbps

 The technology permits over 10 kilobits of data to be written and read in parallel with a
single flash.
 Most optical storage devices, such as a standard CD saves one bit per pulse
 HVDs manage to store 60,000 bits per pulse in the same place.
 1 HVD = 5800 CDs = 830 DVD = 160 BLU-RAY Discs.

8.5 MORE ON HVD

 High Storage capacity of 3.9 terabyte (TB) enables user to store large amount of data.
 Records one program while watching another on the disc.
 Edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc.
 Automatically search for an empty space on the disc to avoid recording over a program.
 Users will be able to connect to the Internet and instantly download subtitles and other
interactive movie features
 Backward compatible: Supports CDs and DVDs also.
 The transfer rate of HVD is up to 1 gigabyte (GB) per second which is 40 times faster than
DVD The transfer rate of HVD is up to 1 gigabyte (GB) per second which is 40 times faster
than DVD.
 An HVD stores and retrieves an entire page of data, approximately 60,000 bitsof
information, in one pulse of light, while a DVD stores and retrieves one bitof data in one
pulse of light.
8.6 COMPARSION

PARAMETER DVD BLU-RAY HVD

S

Capacity 4.7 GB 25 GB 3.9 TB

Laser wave 650 nm 450nm 532nm

length
(red) (blue) (green)

Disc 120 mm 120 mm 120 mm

diameter

Hard No Yes Yes

coting

Data 11.08 mbps 36 mbps 1 gbps

transfer
rate

8.7 POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS

There are many possible applications of holographic memory. Holographic memory systems
can potentially provide the high speed transfers and large volumes of future computer system. One
possible application is data mining. 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. Some current computer system
implement data mining, but the mass amount of storage required is pushing the limits of current data
storage systems. The many advances in access times and data storage capacity that holographic
memory provides could exceed conventional storage and speedup data mining considerably. This
would result in more located patterns in a shorter amount of time. 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. Clearly advances are needed to in more than
memory systems, but the theoretical schematics do exist for such a machine. Optical storage such as
holographic memory provides a viable solution to the extreme amount of data which is required for a
petaflop computing.
 CONCLUSION

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.