Patent ID: 11894035
Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A holographic data storage system comprising:
an emitter system configured to emit an input beam, in the form of a multimode optical signal that encodes multiple image pixels as multiple propagation modes of the input beam propagating in different directions;
an input waveguide network, formed of one or more multimode optical waveguides for carrying multiple propagation modes simultaneously, the input waveguide network having an in-coupling region for receiving an input beam from the emitter system and multiple out-coupling regions;
at least one holographic recording medium having multiple recording regions, each optically coupled a corresponding one of the multiple out-coupling regions of the input waveguide network, the holographic data storage system arranged to persistently and simultaneously write multiple image pixels encoded in an input beam, received at any one of the out-coupling regions, to the corresponding recording region; and
a controller coupled to at least one of the emitter system and at least one controllable guiding element of the input waveguide network, the controller configured to control at least one optical characteristic of the input beam or the at least one guiding element, so as to guide the input beam from the in-coupling region to any selected one of the multiple out-coupling regions, wherein different ones of the multiple recording regions may be written to from the same in-coupling region by changing said at least one optical characteristic or controlling said at least one guiding element to guide the input beam to different ones of the multiple out-coupling regions, whilst the multiple out-coupling regions of the input waveguide network remain at fixed locations relative to the corresponding recording regions of the holographic recording medium.