Patent ID: 7567494

Claim:
A hologram recording and reproducing apparatus recording a hologram in a plurality of unit sectors each corresponding to an illumination spot formed by superposing an information beam and a reference beam on a recording medium which is discal or spherical, and also reproducing the hologram based on light from each of the unit sectors when the illumination spot containing only the reference beam is relatively moved and then stopped at the position where the hologram is recorded, the apparatus comprising: an address information writer that writes address information representing the position of the unit sectors in the recording medium when it is performed to record the hologram in each of the unit sectors; an address information reader that reads out the address information from the recording medium when it is performed to reproduce the hologram from the plurality of unit sectors where the hologram is recorded; and an illumination position controller that sequentially positions the illumination spot only containing the reference beam on the plurality of unit sectors based on the address information read out, and relatively moves the illumination spot from one of the unit sectors to another through a shortest path.