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A reference beam is: a laser beam used to read and write holograms. It is one of two laser beams used to create a hologram. In order to read a hologram out, some aspects of the: reference beam (namely its angle of incidence, beam profile and wavelength) must be reproduced exactly as when it was used to write the——hologram. As a result, usually reference beams are Gaussian beams/spherical wave beams (beams that radiate from a single point) which are fairly easy to reproduce.
The other beam used to write a hologram is the signal beam or object beam.
