Sony demos "cheap" holographic recording technique

Ever since we first laid eyes on a holographic sticker as small children, we knew that this technology would change the landscape of data storage forever (not really, but it makes for a good story), and now Sony has come along and introduced a new way of burning holographic discs that will supposedly expedite the rollout of these magical drives to the average consumer. At this year's International Symposium on Optical Memory taking place in the Kagawa Prefecture of Japan, Sony is showing off its "Micro-Reflector recording" technique which uses an off-the-shelf blue violet semiconductor laser diode for writing data to a 0.3 millimeter-thick photopolymer medium sandwiched by 0.6 millimeter-thick glass substrates without any of the spatial light modulators or CMOS sensors found in traditional holographic systems. How do they achieve this nifty feat, you ask? Simple: the laser beam is "split into two so that one of them irradiates the front side of a medium as a reference light while the other is emitted to the backside as a recording light. By precisely aligning focal points of the two lights with a servo technology, a minute interference fringe corresponding to a 1 bit recording mark is formed. When a laser light (reproduction light) is emitted on the front side of the medium having interference fringes, the recording light is reproduced. This light advances from the fringes to the medium front side as if the fringes reflect the reproduction light." It's all so obvious when you think about it, we're surprised that companies like Optware and InPhase didn't come up with this method first.

[Kevlar @ Oct 18th 2006 9:20PM]

In simpler terms, one laser hits the disc on one side, another on the other side, and by lining these lasers up perfectly together, it leaves a tiny pattern on the disk. When a laser is passed through on only one side (for reading) the pattern can be read by a sensor.

At least, that's what I understood...

[RaynorWolfcastle @ Oct 18th 2006 5:39PM]

It may remove some of the optoelectronics others need but at 1.25 GB/disc at the moment it isn't exactly impressing in terms of capacity either.

[OPTICAL OUT PLEASE @ Oct 18th 2006 6:05PM]

Yay, in 5 years we can bitch about how Sony pushing HoloDVDs on us with PS4.

[Michael @ Oct 18th 2006 6:25PM]

The only people that bitch are the people not getting one.

[Stephen Yuan @ Oct 20th 2006 9:58AM]

I think it's a Holographic BD

[Rick wilson @ Oct 18th 2006 6:47PM]

always glad to see competition in holographic technology!

[Jeff @ Oct 18th 2006 7:05PM]

What ever happened to those super high capacity holographic data cards?

[Rob @ Oct 18th 2006 7:07PM]

You mean these holographic data cards?

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050608/105586/

[az @ Oct 18th 2006 7:49PM]

I hope the totally unneccessary over the top holo-jargon was done tongue-in-cheek, otherwise Evan needs an ego-enema.

And yes, I need a hyphen-enema.

[oo7ev @ Oct 18th 2006 8:08PM]

Ya, but can I save distress videos of princesses on my droid?

[Paul @ Oct 18th 2006 8:39PM]

Yeah.... I am an engineering major and this post went totally over my head (ok, I am computer science and only a 2nd year but still, wooooosh)

[KiwiNick @ Oct 18th 2006 9:00PM]

Wow, Sony are already touting the BluRay replacement? RIP Sony, BluRay will crash, HDD FTW. Know this.

[Raider @ Oct 18th 2006 9:52PM]

I never knew cheap and Sony could be used in the same sentence.

[Nushio @ Oct 18th 2006 10:23PM]

Sorry, My comment was meant towards Raider.


And I was just kiddin'. I love Joystiq and Engadget* :P


*Its a shame that the same cannot be said about Sony...

[Phour ZwanZig @ Oct 18th 2006 9:56PM]

KiwiNick @ Oct 18th 2006 8:57PM
Wow, Sony are already touting the BluRay replacement? RIP Sony, BluRay will crash, HDD FTW. Know this.



hehe.. yeah sorta..
Really to me thought it just sounds like Sony is building off of BluRay and using it in their Holo discs (as far as what I gather'd from the link..)

[Nushio @ Oct 18th 2006 10:20PM]

You've never visited Joystiq.com then?




(Sorry I had to say it, theres so much love going on between Xbox and Sony fanboys saying "Oh Joystiq is Biased against Microsoft/Sony")

[Loomis @ Oct 19th 2006 12:18AM]

I think the reason they're using holographic recording is to increase the depth discrimination, significanly increasing the number of data layers that can be recorded onto a single disk, and with a single laser to boot. During playback, the (conjugate) reference beam + recorded hologram act like a filter to reproduce strongly only the info on the particular selected layer... Bragg matching...

They also didn't explain the readout part too well... you use a data beam and a reference beam to record the disk initially. When you re-illuminate the disk with a beam "exactly" like the reference beam, the light diffracts from the recorded hologram in such a way as to recreate the original data beam on the other side.

Cool, huh?

What does this mean for you? Sony's quoting 1.25 GB per layer... with 10 layers, that's approximately 3 standard DVDs with a single laser. Maybe one of the other tech-heads can give us some other implications of this technology, aka, why it's better than existing methods.

[c.Lake @ Oct 19th 2006 12:41AM]

Is Sony "blowing-off" Blu-ray disks already? Wow, that didn't take long.

[Edward K. @ Oct 19th 2006 12:50AM]

omg! DUH!

so obvious! i dont see why i didn't realize this and patent it earlier. gosh!

-sarcasm- :D

[Russ @ Oct 19th 2006 6:57AM]

can i also use it to create holograms for counterfeit game tickets, and merchandise?

[Mark @ Oct 19th 2006 1:05PM]

we all know, that because its a Sony product, it'll come complete with system-screwing DRM, making the whole technology useless.

[Once Optical @ Oct 20th 2006 9:35AM]

The "over-the-top holo jargon" is just quoted verbatim from the original source, a Japanese online tech magazine. I assume Evan quoted it directly because he didn't quite get it either. I imagine holographic storage companies like inPhase didn't come up with this method first because, well, it's not a hologram. To spout more jargon, it's essentially confocal interferometry, but it records only 1 bit per fringe pattern. A hologram's advantage over standard serial data recording techniques is based on the fact that with a spatial light modulator you record a 2 dimensional array of data (like a grid of bits) in parallel, as opposed to one bit at a time. This technology, as seems pretty clear from the graphic on the linked Japanese site, records individual bits in a serial fashion like standard optical disc technology, it just stores the data differently, i.e., as interference fringes as opposed to pits. Moreover, the technique apparently encodes the information with a mechanically actuated mirror, as opposed to electrical modulation of a laser's intensity in a conventional optical storage device. This technique should allow writing to multiple layers in medium, but it is not holography, can not be as fast as holography, and doesn't threaten (or matter much) to companies like inPhase and Optware.