Data storage: ‘5D’ method could hold equivalent of 10,000 Blu-Ray discs

A sophisticated model of the expertise used to create DVDs and Blu-rays can retailer way more information, although it takes some time

By Chris Stokel-Walker

A brand new methodology of writing information onto glass utilizing lasers might retailer 500 terabytes on a single optical disc – but it surely takes so lengthy to create that its functions could also be restricted.

The method makes use of comparable expertise to current optical media, however can retailer 10,000 occasions extra information than Blu-ray discs. It entails a laser that sends out pulses each femtosecond – 1 quadrillionth of a second – to etch minute holes into glass.

Yuhao Lei on the College of Southampton, UK, and his colleagues name the tactic five-dimensional (5D) optical information storage as a result of it makes use of two optical dimensions, based mostly on the polarisation and depth of sunshine, together with the standard three spatial dimensions, to report information.

In checks, the researchers managed to put in writing 6 gigabytes of knowledge onto a 1-inch sq. of glass. They might learn the info again with between 96.3 and 99.5 per cent accuracy, which might be improved to 100 per cent with an error correction algorithm, says Lei.

“The most important problem for us is writing pace,” he says, as they might solely write 225 kilobytes a second, that means the 6 gigabytes took round 6 hours. “We aren’t at the moment doing parallel writing [where multiple laser beams write onto the material]. We’re engaged on enhancing that.”

“This information storage may be very sturdy and may stand up to excessive temperatures, which suggests it could actually stay nearly perpetually,” says crew member Peter Kazansky on the College of Southampton.

With small tweaks, the writing pace might turn out to be 4 occasions sooner, says Kazansky – although he isn’t but certain whether or not that would materially enhance the prospect of errors. The intention is to supply a storage methodology for nationwide archives, says Lei.

“It’s nice to see the apparently huge enhancements which were made within the write speeds and common efficiency of this storage expertise in a lab surroundings in only a few years” says Ben Fino-Radin of Small Knowledge Industries, a New York archiving agency, pointing to a 75 occasions enchancment over an earlier model of the method that would solely write at 3 kilobytes per second in 2017. “What stays unclear is what sensible function 5D glass storage might hypothetically play sooner or later.”

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