Noise-free holographic storage in iron-doped lithium niobate crystals.

We show that fanning noise in lithium niobate crystals can have a deleterious effect on holographic storage in configurations in which the c axis and the grating wave vector coincide, for both ordinary and extraordinary light polarizations. We then demonstrate that this noise is drastically reduced when the c axis is perpendicular to the grating wave vector. Images have been fixed and read out for many hours at high intensity levels, demonstrating long-term storage and good-quality image recall.