Light drive

Apparatus for storage of digital data, comprising

• an encoder subsystem,
• a read subsystem, and
• a bus for providing to the subsystem digital input data comprising a plurality of bits,
• wherein the encoder subsystem provides an optical signal, having multiple wavelengths and multiple brightness levels responsive to the input data, to a selected location in a member comprising photoreceptive material
• and wherein the read subsystem has receptors that are sensitive to each of the multiple wavelengths and the multiple brightness levels.

A method of processing digital data and in particular for inputting, storing and outputting data on a photoreceptive material of a light drive, the light drive having a first set of liquid crystals for projecting light of a selected color onto the photoreceptive material of the light drive and having a refraction grating for detecting the wavelength of light incident upon the grating, the drive having a second set of liquid crystals that are clear or opaque to form a routing system under the photoreceptive material, the method comprising

• (a) inputting data to the light drive by:
• (i) examining the 1's and 0's of the digital data with an encoder and determining the changes to apply to the liquid crystals;
• (ii) tagging the digital data with an address;
• (iii) sending the digital data to the lightdrive through a fiber optic interface;
• and
• (iv) projecting light of a selected color from the liquid crystals onto the photoreceptive material at the address;
• (b) storing the digital data on the light drive by:
• (i) holding a data storage matrix of the photoreceptive material at a threshold by a constant power;
• and
• (ii) applying light to the data storage matrix of the photoreceptive material at a modulated light brightness intensity;
• and
• (c) outputting the digital data from the light drive by:
• (i) applying light that escapes from the second set of liquid crystals to the refraction grating and sensing the wavelength of the applied light;
• and
• (ii) transmitting the sensed wavelength to a decoder to covert the data to a string of 1's and 0's.