DESIGN OF OPTICAL MEMORY Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: optical instruments for information storage, in particular, design of optical storage equipment as alternative to hard magnetic or MO drives. SUBSTANCE: transparent crystal optical medium which contains small ferroelectric particles is used for information storage. Size of said ferroelectric particles is less than half of wavelength of lasers used for information writing and reading. Information is written and read using non-destructive laser methods which provide high three- dimensional resolution and possibility of fast parallel access to information in complete volume of optical medium. Information is written by focusing laser to arbitrary point in optical medium. This results in alternation of orientation of optical medium particles under laser beam in caustic of laser beam. Information is read from caustic of laser beam by means of reading integral frequency or second harmonics of laser beam. EFFECT: possibility of durable storage of digital and analog information under room temperature with increased information capacity and possibility of parallel reading and writing of information. 4 dwg