A superwide-angle coverage code-multiplexed optical scanner is presented that has the potential to provide 4pi-sr coverage. As a proof-of-concept experiment, an angular scan range of 288degrees for six randomly distributed beams is demonstrated. The proposed scanner achieves its superwide coverage by exploiting a combination of phase-encoded transmission and reflection holography within an in-line hologram recording-retrieval geometry. The basic scanner unit consists of one phase-only digital mode spatial light modulator for code entry (i.e., beam scan control) and a holographic material from which we obtained what we believe is the first-of-a-kind extremely wide coverage, low component count, high speed (e.g., microsecond domain), and large aperture (e.g., >1-cm diameter) scanner. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.A superwide-angle coverage code-multiplexed optical scanner is presented that has the potential to provide 4pi-sr coverage. As a proof-of-concept experiment, an angular scan range of 288degrees for six randomly distributed beams is demonstrated. The proposed scanner achieves its superwide coverage by exploiting a combination of phase-encoded transmission and reflection holography within an in-line hologram recording-retrieval geometry. The basic scanner unit consists of one phase-only digital mode spatial light modulator for code entry (i.e., beam scan control) and a holographic material from which we obtained what we believe is the first-of-a-kind extremely wide coverage, low component count, high speed (e.g., microsecond domain), and large aperture (e.g., >1-cm diameter) scanner. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.