Pit Distribution Design for Computer-Generated Waveguide Holography

Multilayered waveguide holography (MWH) is one of a number of page-oriented data multiplexing holographies that will be applied to optical data storage and three-dimensional (3D) moving images. While conventional volumetric holography using photopolymer or photorefractive materials requires page-by-page light exposure for recording, MWH media can be made by employing stamping and laminating technologies that are suitable for mass production. This makes devising an economical mastering technique for replicating holograms a key issue. In this paper, we discuss an approach to pit distribution design that enables us to replace expensive electron beam mastering with economical laser beam mastering. We propose an algorithm that avoids the overlapping of even comparatively large adjacent pits when we employ laser beam mastering. We also compensate for the angular dependence of the diffraction power, which strongly depends on pit shape, by introducing an enhancement profile so that a diffracted image has uniform intensity.