Takehiro Niitsu

Holographic recording and retrieval of polarized light by use of polyester containing cyanoazobenzene units in the side chain.

We examined the holographic recording properties of polyester containing cyanoazobenzene units in the side chain. It was revealed that, when a linearly polarized object beam with an arbitrary polarization direction was recorded, the retrieved beam had the same polarization state as that of the object beam, with a constant diffraction efficiency of 0.1. Moreover, two object beams with mutually orthogonal linear polarization could be recorded and retrieved separately from the same area. This is, to our knowledge, the first example of holographic polarization multiplexing. The retrieved images were found to resolve details of ~40line pairs/mm and a 40-mum -pitched checkerboard pattern. The resolution of the system is limited by the CCD cameras that are used. Polarization encoding to increase the storage capacity and (or) the signal-to-noise ratio of holographic data recording is also discussed.

Optical computing by a vector holographic memory system

We propose what is to our knowledge a novel holographic memory system that is simultaneously applicable to data storage and optical computing. We introduce a polarization-modulated reference beam into holographic recording. A desired spatial-frequency component of an object beam is recorded as a polarization-modulated grating, and the other component is recorded as an intensity-modulated grating. Since the polarization-modulated grating rotates the polarization axis of the incident light by 90 degrees , it is possible to distinguish the desired spatial-frequency component of the retrieved image. Utilizing this property, we have successfully performed spatial-frequency filtering and frequency-selective matched filtering. The system is capable of a variety of optical computations, depending on the design of the polarization modulation.

Spatial-frequency filtering by vector holographic memory system

This new system is capable of recording polarization. For holographic recording and optical computing, we used polarization-modulated reference beams. Detecting polarization components of retrieved signal, we successfully achieved data retrieval and spatial-frequency filtering.