A New Associative Memory System Utilizing Holography

A new associative memory utilizing holography is described, which has advantages such as higher density and larger capacity storage, simpler peripheral devices, and reciprocal translation between different kinds of information. The advantages of the holographic associative memory were achieved by use of associative translation function of a hologram and spatial logical operations. Two types of the holographic associative memory are explained; one uses a thin hologram, and the other a thick hologram. In the latter case, the ultimate bit density of 10
⁷
bits/cm
²
is expected. A preliminary experiment of the memory system using a thin hologram (10 words x10 interrogation bits x20 information bits) was carried out and confirmed high signal-to-noise ratio in the interrogation and read out operations, associative translation function between different information, and high reliability in the memory operation.