Abstract
The principles of the photorefractive storage process in doped LiNbO 3 are derived in a closed-form expression based on a linear charge transport equation. The inspection of the solutions obtained allows the analysis of different recording modes and the optimalization of the key parameter for the multiple storage of volume holograms. By this technique the storage capacity can be increased by two orders of magnitude. The theoretical and experimental results are presented and some limitations of the storage capacity are discussed.