'5D' storage could hold 10,000 times more data than a Blu-ray disc

An precocious mentation of the exertion utilized to make DVDs and Blu-rays tin store acold much data, though it takes a while

Technology 28 October 2021

By Chris Stokel-Walker

A 1-inch quadrate of solid tin store 6 gigabytes of data

Yuhao Lei and Peter G. Kazansky, University of Southampton

A caller method of penning information onto solid utilizing lasers could store 500 terabytes connected a azygous optical disc – but it takes truthful agelong to make that its applications whitethorn beryllium limited.

The method uses akin exertion to existing optical media, but tin store 10,000 times much information than Blu-ray discs. It involves a laser that sends retired pulses each femtosecond – 1 quadrillionth of a 2nd – to etch infinitesimal holes into glass.

Yuhao Lei astatine the University of Southampton, UK, and his colleagues telephone the method five-dimensional (5D) optical information retention due to the fact that it uses 2 optical dimensions, based connected the polarisation and strength of light, on with the accustomed 3 spatial dimensions, to grounds data.

In tests, the researchers managed to constitute 6 gigabytes of information onto a 1-inch quadrate of glass. They could work the information backmost with betwixt 96.3 and 99.5 per cent accuracy, which could beryllium improved to 100 per cent with an mistake correction algorithm, says Lei.

“The large situation for america is penning speed,” helium says, arsenic they could lone constitute 225 kilobytes a second, meaning the 6 gigabytes took astir 6 hours. “We are not presently doing parallel penning [where aggregate laser beams constitute onto the material]. We’re moving connected improving that.”

“This information retention is precise durable and tin withstand precocious temperatures, which means it tin unrecorded astir forever,” says squad subordinate Peter Kazansky astatine the University of Southampton.

With tiny tweaks, the penning velocity could go 4 times faster, says Kazansky – though helium isn’t yet definite whether that could materially summation the accidental of errors. The volition is to supply a retention method for nationalist archives, says Lei.

“It’s large to spot the seemingly immense improvements that person been made successful the constitute speeds and wide show of this retention exertion successful a laboratory situation successful conscionable a fewer years” says Ben Fino-Radin of Small Data Industries, a New York archiving firm, pointing to a 75 times betterment implicit an earlier mentation of the method that could lone constitute astatine 3 kilobytes per 2nd in 2017. “What remains unclear is what applicable relation 5D solid retention could hypothetically play successful the future.”

Journal reference: Optica, DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.433765

More connected these topics:

• lasers
• data