The photochromic and photoanisotropic properties of materials can be used in ordinary and polarization holographic recording respectively. Fulgides are well known as thermally irreversible organic photochromic compounds. And it is found that there exists photoinduced anisotropy in fulgide-doped polymeric films. In this report, a 3-indoly-benzylfulgimide/PMMA film was studied as a holographic storage media. First, the spectra and dynamics of photochromic and photoanisotropic properties of the sample are measured or calculated. Second, the diffraction efficiency (DE) dynamics at 633？nm of four kinds of different polarization holograms recorded in this sample are measured. The maximum DE value about 1% was gotten. Third, the DE spectra and DE dynamics are theoretically calculated in detail, and a good correlation of theoretically derived DE dynamic curves and the measured experimental curves was found. From the DE spectra, it is known that at the wavelengths less than 450？nm or greater than 700？nm, the nondestructive reading can be realized. The DWPS obtained in the experiments are same with the theortically deduced ones, which shows that in the orthogonal polarization holography, the polarization state of the diffracted light is orthogonal to that of the reconstruction light, which is very important to increase the SNR of the holographic storage. And all these results are applied and proved to be correct in high-density holographic image storage experiment. The area density of ？bits/cm2 was obtained, and the encoded data was retrieved without error. 1. Introduction Holographic optical storage becomes an important research aspect in optical storage field for its high data storage capacity and data transmission rate. Fulgides are well known as thermally irreversible organic photochromic compounds [1], which can be used as rewritable ordinary holographic recording material. But up to now, a few researches have been done on the holographic storage application of fulgide materials [2–9]. And we found that there exists photo-induced anisotropy in fulgide-doped polymeric films [10], which can be used in polarization holography application. Here, the diffracted wave polarization states (DWPS) and the diffraction efficiencies (DE) of ordinary holograms and polarization holograms recorded in a 3-indoly-benzylfulgimide/PMMA film are studied in detail. First, the photochromic and photoanisotropic properties of the sample is given, and the DE dynamics at 633？nm of parallel linearly, parallel circularly, orthogonal linearly, and orthogonal circularly polarization
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