New Retinal nano-ceramic materials with pillared hybrid micro-structures are fabricated for potential applications in optical holographic data storage. We observe that the Schiff bases have substantial effect on optical properties of Retinal nano-ceramic films as well as temporal response and diffraction efficiency for holographic storage. These inexpensive synthetic biological nano-ceramic thin films are good candidates for holographic storage and offer a simple procedure to solve the problems of volatility of optical storage in Retinal proteins. In addition, our study indicates feasibility of optimizing optical properties of nano-ceramic clay systems using Schiff bases for a variety of photonic applications. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.