Bacteriorhodopsin oriented in polyvinyl alcohol films as an erasable optical storage medium.

Films of oriented bacteriorhodopsin have been formed in polyvinyl alcohol with excellent optical quality. Images with high contrast have been impressed and erased on these films. Second-harmonic microscopy has been used to read the image on a bacteriorhodopsin-polyvinyl alcohol film without erasure. The potential of these films for molecular information storage and computation is discussed.