Patent ID: 7480085

Claim:
A holographic memory system comprising: a photosensitive holographic storage medium which holographically stores information; a source of a coherent light beam; and an optical steering subsystem for directing the coherent light beam to the holographic storage medium comprising: a variable optical divider comprising: at least one polarization device dynamically controllable to manipulate polarization of the coherent light beam to generate a polarized coherent light beam having a particular polarization; and at least one polarizing beam splitter which redirects the polarized coherent light beam into one or more discrete light beams and which dynamically allocates power of the polarized coherent light beam among the one or more discrete light beams based on the polarization of the polarized coherent light beam; wherein the one or more discrete light beams are a reference light beam, a data light beam or a reconstruction light beam; wherein the at least one polarizing beam splitter redirects and dynamically allocates the power of the polarized coherent light beam into the reference light beam and the data light beam when the system is in a write operational mode; wherein the at least one polarizing beam splitter redirects and dynamically allocates the power of the polarized coherent light beam into the reconstruction light beam when the system is in a read operational mode.