Collinear holography.

A novel reading and writing technology for a holographic storage system called collinear holography is developed. With this method, two-dimensional page data can be recorded as volumetric holograms generated by a reference beam and a signal beam that are bundled on the same axis and irradiated on the recording medium through a single objective lens. The multiplex recording and reconstructing process is demonstrated, and it is presented that optical configuration and the dichroic media disk structure are suitable for a compact system. This method enables us to construct a small volumetric optical disk storage system with CD and DVD upper compatibility.