Abstract: A photosensitive element 46 absorbs at least a portion of an incident write beam 40, causing a spatially varying electric field to be applied across a layer of a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) 48, thereby forming a pattern of local polarizations corresponding to the spatially varying electric field. In one embodiment, a signal beam is modulated with a phase variation characteristic of a particular aberrator. The signal beam is then combined with a substantially plane wave reference beam to form interference fringes. These interference fringes are directed as a write beam onto photosensitive layer 46, forming a hologram in FLC layer 48 which can be read optically. An incident beam of light can be diffracted by a hologram formed in the FLC layer, thereby modulating the incident beam of light with the phase variations comprising the hologram.

Abstract: In a method of taking and reproducing photographs in which a hologram in the substrate of the photograph is superposed on the photograph and is produced, e.g., by the Lippmann-Bragg process by an object beam and a reference beam from the same light source, the object beam containing amplitude information corresponding to the photograph in such a manner that a corresponding image is formed at the same time on the substrate which corresponds to the hologram plane, and the aperture stop of image-forming optical system contains the object to be represented by the hologram. An optical phase modulator for producing a predetermined set of phase disturbances is provided between the aperture stop and the hologram plane.