Potentials of two-photon based 3-D optical memories for high performance computing

The advent of optoelectronic computers and highly parallel electronic processors has brought about a need for storage systems with enormous memory capacity and memory bandwidth. These demands cannot be met with current memory technologies (i.e., semiconductor, magnetic, or optical disk) without having the memory system completely dominate the processors in terms of the overall cost, power consumption, volume, and weight. As a solution, we propose an optical volume memory based on the two-photon effect which allows for high density and parallel access. In addition, the two-photon 3-D memory system has the advantages of having high capacity and throughput which may overcome the disadvantages of current memories.