Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD)

Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology which would hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of information. It employs a technique known as collinear holography, whereby two lasers, one red and one green, are collimated in a single beam. The green laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a holographic layer near the top of the disc while the red laser is used as the reference beam and to read servo information from a regular CD-style aluminum layer near the bottom. Servo information is used to monitor the position of the read head over the disc, similar to the head, track, and sector information on a conventional hard disk drive. On a CD or DVD this servo information is interspersed amongst the data.

A dichroic mirror layer between the holographic data and the servo data reflects the green laser while letting the red laser pass through. This prevents interference from refraction of the green laser off the servo data pits and is an advance over past holographic storage media, which either experienced too much interference, or lacked the servo data entirely, making them incompatible with current CD and DVD drive technology. These discs have the capacity to hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of information, which is approximately 5,800 times the capacity of a CD-ROM, 850 times the capacity of a DVD, 160 times the capacity of single-layer Blu-ray Discs, and about 4 times the capacity of the largest computer hard drives as of 2007. The HVD also has a transfer rate of 1 Gbit/s (128 MB/s). Optware was expected to release a 200 GB disc in early June 2006, and Maxell in September 2006 with a capacity of 300 GB and transfer rate of 20 MB/s. On June 28 , 2007, HVD standards have been approved and published.

It's an optical disc technology still in the childhood stages of research called as the collinear holography, would soon gain upper hand over the existing technologies like the blue-ray and HD DVD optical disc systems with respect to its storage capacity. Consisting of a blue-green laser and a red laser collimated in a single beam, the blue-green laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a holographic layer near the top of the disc while the red laser is used as the reference beam and to read servo information from a regular CD-style aluminium layer near the bottom.

Current optical storage saves one bit per pulse, and the HVD alliance hopes to improve this efficiency with capabilities of around 60,000 bits per pulse in an inverted, truncated cone shape that has a 200 micrometer diameter at the bottom and a 500 micrometer diameter at the top. High densities are possible by moving these closer on the tracks: 100 GB at 18 micrometers separation, 200 GB at 13 micrometers, 500 GB at 8 micrometers and a demonstrated maximum of 3.9 TB for 3 micrometer separation on a 12 cm disc.

The system uses a green laser, with an output power of 1 watt, a high power for a consumer device laser. So a major challenge of the project for widespread consumer markets is to either improve the sensitivity of the polymer used, or develop and commoditize a laser capable of higher power output and suitable for a consumer unit.