Abstract: An optical disk drive (101) is disclosed which has essentially no seek time. The drive utilizes a Virtual Head (VH) (103) which is capable of accessing any and/or all tracks in an optical disc (111) at any time. The drive utilizes a procedure by which all of the tracks (208) in an optical disc are continuously mapped to a detector (121) space at all times, thus making data stored on the disk drive available almost instantaneously. The mapping of the optical disc tracks to the sensor space is direct in that it is predetermined and is an integral part of the driver software. The direct mapping makes it possible to use the least amount of computation time required to access any track. The technique is enabled by using a combination of a holographic lens element (125) with the detector. The technique and the components used in this device open the possibility for rapid data transfers using multidimensional data access.

Abstract: A device for retrieving multidimensional data from a data storage medium is provided. The device (103) comprises a source of electromagnetic radiation, an optical data processing system (401) adapted to perform logical operations on an input optical data array, and an optical device or devices (125) adapted to direct electromagnetic radiation onto the surface of a data storage medium and to transmit reflections of the electromagnetic radiation, in the form of multidimensional data patterns, to said optical data processing system. The data may be formatted in multiple dimensions.

Abstract: A device for retrieving data from a data storage medium is provided. The device (103) comprises a source of electromagnetic radiation and a holographic lens element (125) which is adapted to generate a hologram in the form of a multidimensional data pattern. The device is adapted to direct the electromagnetic radiation onto the surface of a data storage medium and to transmit reflections of the electromagnetic radiation, in the form of multidimensional data patterns, to a detector.