Optical processing using optical memories

Abstract

The spatial- and wavelength-selective properties of volume holograms make it possible to overlap multiple holograms within the same volume, yet access them independently. By recording the interference fringes between coherent reference and object beams, information displayed on a spatial light modulator can be densely packed into a photosensitive material. Reilluminating with the original reference beam reconstructs a weak copy of the original data-bearing object beam, which can then be detected with a pixel-matched camera. Alternatively, multichannel optical correlation between the input and stored data pages can be used to implement a content-addressable memory.