Data Storage
A major step in the development of digital data storage that is capable of surviving for billions of years has been made. Using nanostructured glass, scientists have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing.
Researchers at the University of Southampton have made a development in the field of of digital data storage that may be capable of surviving for billions of years.
Using nanostructured glass, scientists from the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing.
"It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations."
The storage solution allows unprecedented properties including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C ) opening a new era of eternal data archiving.The technology could be highly useful for organisations with big archives, such as national archives, museums and libraries, to preserve their information and records and could also be used for very stable and safe form of portable memory.
The technology was first experimentally demonstrated in 2013 when a 300 kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D. Now the researchers have further developed their 'Superman’ memory crystal.'
Now, major documents from human history such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Newton’s Opticks, Magna Carta and Kings James Bible, have been saved as digital copies that could survive the human race. A copy of the UDHR encoded to 5D data storage was recently presented to UNESCO by the ORC at the International Year of Light (IYL) closing ceremony in Mexico.
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| Universal Declaration of Human Rights recorded into 5D optical data |
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The documents were recorded 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 (one millionth of a metre). 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 polariser, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.Coined as the ‘Superman memory crystal’, as the glass memory has been compared to the “memory crystals” used in the Superman films
, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.Professor Peter Kazansky, from the ORC, says: “It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations. This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”
The researchers will present their research at the photonics industry's renowned SPIE Photonics West—The International Society for Optical Engineering Conference in San Francisco, USA this week. The invited paper, ‘5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Writing in Glass’ will be presented by the team.
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