New technology will 'secure the last evidence of civilisation'
Using nanostructured glass, scientists at Southampton University have experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing.
The storage is claimed to allow unprecedented parameters including 360TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime.
Data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.
A 300kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D using ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometres.
The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarisation of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polarizer.
The research is led by Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) researcher Jingyu Zhang and conducted under a joint project with Eindhoven University of Technology.
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