Byte-storage device by volume holography at 1550 nm

Summary form only given.Photonic technology is playing an increasing role in the field of communication system, proposing many interesting answers to its most urging requests. The need for processing operations suggests massive exploitation of all optical techniques; in particular, volume holography reveals itself as an extremely promising technology for the implementation of two classes of devices, on one hand filters, multiplexers/demultiplexers and routers, on the other storage elements for space-encoded digital signals. We have shown the feasibility of a volume holographic memory for optical bytes in LiNbO/sub 3/:Fe to be read out by WDM communication signals. These first results may be surely improved in two directions, by either increasing the diffraction efficiency of the recorded holograms (up to 80%) or narrowing the wavelength selectivity between diffracted signals (down to 100 to 50 GHz).