Reliability of content-addressable data search in a defocused volume holographic data storage system.

We investigate for suitable methods that enable reliable content-addressable data search in a defocused volume holographic data storage system. Two techniques have been introduced and are shown to overcome the shortcomings of the known methods used to perform content searching in defocused holographic recording geometry. In effect, we remove the deterministic errors that result because of the presence of nonmatching database records, producing almost the same correlation scores as the true targeted correlation scores. Such deterministic errors give rise to erroneous search outcomes and reduce the speed advantage of the parallel holographic data search. We present experimental results and discuss the improvements offered by the two introduced methods in terms of storage density and measured correlation scores. Both the methods of modified-balanced and 25% sparse modulation coded data pages are found to produce good results, negating the undesired correlation characteristics.