A signal beam or object beam is one of at least two laser

Laser

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

 beams used to write holograms. The signal beam is the beam that carries the information to be stored in the hologram. In the case of a holographic picture, this beam is reflected off the object being recorded, into the media. In the case of holographic data storage, the beam has some kind information encoded into it (for instance, it can be sent through a transparency or a spatial light modulator

Spatial light modulator

A spatial light modulator is an object that imposes some form of spatially-varying modulation on a beam of light. A simple example is an overhead projector transparency. Usually when the phrase SLM is used, it means that the transparency can be controlled by a computer. In the 1980s, large SLMs...

).

The other beam necessary to write a hologram is the reference beam

Reference beam

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 must be reproduced exactly as when it was used to write the hologram...

.