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

Claim 14:
15. A holographic data retrieval system comprising:
at least one detector array;
at least one holographic recording medium;
an output waveguide network, formed of one or more multimode optical waveguides, the output waveguide network having an out-coupling region for providing an output beam to the detector array, and multiple in-coupling regions respectively optically coupled to corresponding recording regions of the at least one holographic recording medium; and
a controller configured to cause an output beam to be guided through the output waveguide network from any selected one of the recording regions, via the in-coupling region optically coupled thereto, to said out-coupling region for receiving at the detector array, by controlling at least one controllable guiding element of the output waveguide network or at least one optical characteristic of a reference beam used to create the output beam, wherein different ones of the multiple recording regions may be read from using the same detector array, by changing said at least one optical characteristic or controlling said at least one guiding element, whilst the multiple out-coupling regions of the output waveguide network remain at fixed locations relative to the corresponding recording regions of the holographic recording medium, wherein the holographic data retrieval system is configured to create the output beam by causing a reference beam to interact with a pattern stored at the selected recoding region, the stored pattern encoding multiple image pixels, which are encoded in the output beam as multiple propagation modes propagating simultaneously in different directions through the output waveguide network.