Reconstruction effects in magnetic holography

Magnetic holography, a storage method based on the combination of techniques of magneto-optics and holography, is shown to have features which are unique to either of these techniques. In contrast to the usual situation in magneto-optics, reconstruction may be obtained with either the Faraday or polar Kerr effect, using polarized or unpolarized light. Furthermore the reconstruction will not be ellipticaly polarized if linearly polarized light is used for readout. In contrast to the usual case in holography, the first-order diffracted wave is polarized at 90° to both the incident and zeroth-order waves. This feature allows a considerable increase in the attainable signal-to-noise in the reconstruction. These and other features are described analytically and demonstrated experimentally.