The Future in Data Storage Holographic Optical Data Storage The Future in Data Storage

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.

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.

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

Overview of HODS

The Practical Setup

The Green Argon Laser Laser light is a green 514.5-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 100-400 mW .

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.

About Lithium Niobate Crystal Chemical Formula- LiNbO3. It has high photorefractive sensitivity & stability. It has trigonal structure. Molecular weight - 147.9. Band gap - 4eV

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.

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.

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

Recording by Figure

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

Reading by Figure

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.

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.

Future Applications

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

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

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

Interesting Facts With predicted technology a 1cm3 laser cube is equal to: - 6,944,440 1.44MB floppy discs - 14,286 700 MB CD-ROM’s 40 250 GB hard drives 25 million books of the Library of Congress(US)

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

Further Research/Bibliography www.lucent.com/press/0101/010130.bla.html http://www.research.ibm.com/research/press/holographic.html http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/443/ashley.pdf http://www.imation.com/about/news/newsitem/0%2C1233%2C298%2C00.html http://www.pitt.edu/~drew1/2089/holo.htm http://www.sciam.com/2000/0500issue/0500toigbox5.html

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