The present invention relates to an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to holographic storage media (15), and more specifically to an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to holographic storage media (15) having an improved overlap between one or more reference beams (6, 6a, 6b, 6c) and an object beam (5) or a reconstructed object beam (19).
According to the invention, the apparatus has a common aperture arrangement of a reference beam (6) and an object beam (5) or a reconstructed object beam (19), wherein the focus of the reference beam (6) is shifted relative to the focus of the object beam (5) or the reconstructed object beam (19) within a focal plane (25) of the object beam (5) or the reconstructed object beam (19) inside or close to the holographic storage medium (15).