Patent ID: 7339710

Claim:
A hologram reading system, comprising: (a) a light source for producing a reference beam for reading which produces a reference beam for reading comprising an approximately cylindrical coherent beam with a small curvature; (b) at least one detector array; (c) a substantially disc-shaped holographic recording medium comprising at least one recorded hologram, wherein said hologram is recorded over approximately an entire surface of said holographic recording medium, such that said hologram can be substantially entirely reconstructed by illuminating said holographic recording medium with a substantially conical reference beam of coherent light of a predetermined wavelength, such that said conical reference beam illuminates said holographic recording medium in an approximately circularly symmetric fashion; (d) an optical system for partly imaging the reconstructed image of said hologram to said detector array; (e) a motor for rotating said holographic recording medium; and (f) a translating mechanism for radially translating said reference beam for reading with respect to said holographic recording medium, wherein said hologram comprises recorded images of a plurality of data pages comprising a plurality of pixels arranged in an approximately rectangular array.