Patent · US Expired

Optical data storage medium and method for writing and reading of data

US6052354A · kind A · utility

21Cited by
36References
26Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 23, 1997
Grant dateApr 18, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 23, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11C13/04
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In an optical data storage medium with a storage area formed from a transparent, homogenous base material and with a number of optically active structures at one side of the storage area, the optically active structures are diffractive optical elements which can focus a beam of light incident on the storage area on to one or more points in the storage area and/or a redirected beam of light or emitted light radiation from this or these points on to a point outside the optical storage medium. During writing/reading of data in the storage medium, the diffractive optical elements are used for focusing the write/read beam in order to generate a data carrying structure or read data stored in such a data carrying structure, respectively. By exploiting the special optical properties of diffractive optical elements, it is possible to achieve parallel writing/reading of data, possibly in several parallel storage layers in the optical storage medium or randomly distributed therein, the optical storage medium thus providing a genuine volumetric storage and a corresponding genuine volumetric accessing of the stored data.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.