Development of Long Lifetime Photorefractive Crystals for Holographic Data Storage

摘要

The lifetime of thermally fixed photorefractive holograms in iron doped lithium niobate was investigated. A prescription for material preparation and fixing technique was developed that enables a thermally fixed hologram to be recorded in Fe-doped LiNbO3 with high diffraction efficiency and long lifetime. In particular, a hologram with a fixed photorefractive index modulation of 10(exp -3) and a 100 year lifetime at room temperature is predicted. A lithium niobate crystal was processed according to the prescription and a thermally fixed hologram was recorded at high temperature. The projected lifetime of the hologram at 25 deg C was shown to be 110 years.