5D optical memory in glass?

[rhoenix]

Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime.

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, 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 300 kb 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 polariser, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.

The research is led by the ORC researcher Jingyu Zhang and conducted under a joint project with Eindhoven University of Technology.

"We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organisations with big archives. At the moment companies have to back up their archives every five to ten years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan," says Jingyu.

"Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit."

The Physical Optics group from the ORC presented their ground-breaking paper at the photonics industry's renowned Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO'13) in San Jose. The paper, '5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructuring in Glass' was presented by the during CLEO's prestigious post deadline session.

Professor Peter Kazansky, the ORC's group supervisor, adds: "It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we've learnt will not be forgotten."

The team are now looking for industry partners to commercialise this ground-breaking new technology.

This work was done in the framework of EU project Femtoprint.

So - pretty much permanent storage using glass and lasers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I see "memory storage crystals" as possible in our future now.

[B4UTRUST]

If I recall correctly there was a company a year or two back working towards that using holographic optical storage. Ended up at around 300GB storage discs(which is awesome) but only had around 20MB/s write speeds(which isn't really impressive). Supposedly the discs had around a 50 years. If memory serves, it didn't pan out much past there and the main company behind the tech went bankrupt.

So I'd say while I'm always hopeful for these sort of vast improvements in storage, I'm rather hesitant to believe that they're going end up in my living room. Maybe one day. The biggest drawback to this sort of thing I see is from a commercial/consumer end. Aside from myself, there just aren't that many people outside of massive filesharers/servers and corporations that need that sort of storage capacity. Your average person has a potential use/need for a CD or DVD burner. Most haven't gotten to the point of needing blu-ray burners. Hell, most people haven't gotten to the point of needing a 1TB hard drive, much less 3 or 4TB drives.

I'd love to say it's going to be reality, but most of the time when I see these sort of announcements, they end up becoming pipe dreams.

[rhoenix]

If I recall correctly there was a company a year or two back working towards that using holographic optical storage. Ended up at around 300GB storage discs(which is awesome) but only had around 20MB/s write speeds(which isn't really impressive). Supposedly the discs had around a 50 years. If memory serves, it didn't pan out much past there and the main company behind the tech went bankrupt.

So I'd say while I'm always hopeful for these sort of vast improvements in storage, I'm rather hesitant to believe that they're going end up in my living room. Maybe one day. The biggest drawback to this sort of thing I see is from a commercial/consumer end. Aside from myself, there just aren't that many people outside of massive filesharers/servers and corporations that need that sort of storage capacity. Your average person has a potential use/need for a CD or DVD burner. Most haven't gotten to the point of needing blu-ray burners. Hell, most people haven't gotten to the point of needing a 1TB hard drive, much less 3 or 4TB drives.

I'd love to say it's going to be reality, but most of the time when I see these sort of announcements, they end up becoming pipe dreams.

Most of the time, they do - the real hurdles are the following, as I see them:

a) read/write speed (they'd have to be both comparable, and relatively quick by modern standards)
b) data integrity (how much can it store, and for how long)

If something is arranged that properly satisfies both a) and b), then we might see a migration away from even solid-state drives. As it is, solid-state is slowly supplanting platter-based drives; the requirements for a step beyond that would be steep, but it's still materially possible to happen.

Of course, "possible" and "probable" are two different things.

[White Haven]

I think I may have seen more concentrated worthless pulp science reporting in one place, but I can't recall when. Recording data in three layers is not five-dimensional, people. Using a laser doesn't make it five-dimensional either. Recording and retrieving four-dimensional data would require that you be able to inscribe it such that it is read differently depending on when you read it, and that you be able to read it at different points in time at will. Five-dimensional is just that extra level of 'let's throw buzzwords at the wall and see what sticks.' Is this a potentially-neat technique? Yep. But the hilariously awful 'science reporting' on offer here has my cold-fusion senses tingling.

[rhoenix]

Scientists at the University of Southampton in the UK have succeeded in creating five-dimensional (5D), ultra-high-density storage on standard silica glass discs that, unlike DVDs or Blu-rays, seem to be capable of storing data for an unlimited period of time without a reduction in data integrity. The scientists say that 5D optical storage could allow for densities as high as 360 terabytes per disc, and unless you crush it in a vice, these discs are so non-volatile that data stored on them should “survive the human race.”

At first glance, five-dimensional storage might sound a bit like pseudoscience — but, in this case, the data really is stored on five different dimensions (surfaces, planes). There are the usual two dimensions (width, height) provided by a piece of silica glass, and depth is provided by writing at three different depths (layers) within the glass. The fourth and fifth dimensions are provided by nanostructuring the surface of the glass, so that it refracts and polarizes light in interesting ways.

To record data, spots are imprinted on the glass (pictured below) using a femtosecond laser. A femtosecond laser, in this case, produces bursts of laser light that last for just 280 femtoseconds (280 quadrillionths of a second). These spots, thanks to the nanostructuring of the surface, and some hologram cleverness, are capable of recording up to three bits of data in two “dimensions.” By varying the focus of the laser, the team are able to create layers of dots that are separated by five micrometers (0.005mm) in the z-axis (the third dimension). Then, by simply moving the laser horizontally and vertically, these tri-bits can be stored in two more dimensions, bringing the total to 5D. The image at the top of the story helps illustrate this concept.

To read these spots, an optical microscope that’s capable of untangling the polarized light reflected by the three-bit spots is used. There’s no word on whether these silica glass discs can be rewritten, but the research paper [PDF] makes it sound like this is a write-once-read-many (WORM) storage method.

As you can imagine, storing a tri-bit in a single dot, and then storing these dots in a three-dimensional medium, allows for utterly insane storage densities. The researchers say that 360 terabytes could be stored on a single 5D disc — by comparison, quad-layer Blu-ray discs that store just a single bit per pit have a total capacity of 128 gigabytes, or almost 3,000 times less. The best hard drive technology, heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which will soon make its way into commercial drives, will max out at around 20 terabytes per disc.

Furthermore, the scientists report that their glass discs are thermally stable at temperatures up to 1000 degrees Celsius, and the imprinted spots don’t seem to degrade over time. This led Peter Kazansky, the group’s supervisor, to pipe up with this particularly memorable/questionable soundbite: “It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

Moving forward, the University of Southampton is now looking for industry partners to commercialize this technology. Obvious applications include archival storage, where the management of huge repositories of tapes and hard drives is expensive, complex, and time-consuming business. Eventually, assuming the complex laser/microscope setup can be miniaturized, these discs might offer an upgrade path from DVDs and Blu-rays.

Another update, courtesy of another site. This one explains the "five dimensions" aspect a bit better.

[White Haven]

And again, those are not additional dimensions. Those are simply using unusual properties of a three-dimensional data storage medium, not five-dimensional treknobabble. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea, but these guys sound desperate for buzzwords or something.

[rhoenix]

I get that this is marketing-speak being mixed in with science, and I agree that creating new fancy buzzwords instead of simply using the actual terms is counterproductive, especially in terms of self-education or even discussion.

On the other hand, I can't think of a better descriptor for this sort of process other than "variable-layer 3d writing."

[Josh]

My smartphone won't even come in out of the rain, so it's not smart at all.

[Lys]

The word dimension has more meanings than just spacial coordinates. Other meanings include: "the range over which or the degree to which something extends : scope —usually used in plural", "one of the elements or factors making up a complete personality or entity : aspect", and "any of the fundamental units (as of mass, length, or time) on which a derived unit is based; also : the power of such a unit". So the calling it five dimensional data storage is not incorrect because the technique in question does, in fact, have five ranges over which to encode the data.

[General Havoc]

My smartphone won't even come in out of the rain, so it's not smart at all.

... or perhaps it's too smart to come out in inclement weather?

[Batman]

Err-not 'come out in the rain', which would indeed be pretty smart of it, but 'come in out of the rain', indicating the phone will stay outside even when rained upon, presumably rather heavily. Now some people would probably put that down to the fact that smartphones can't move by themselves and thusly don't have much of a choice in the matter if they're left outside to be rained on, but since a person as sophisticated as Josh would naturally know that he obviously has information about the abilities (and possibly, intentions, which presumably are malevolent) of smartphones that the rest of us don't.

[Josh]

I feel that I'm being subtly mocked here, but I can't quite put my finger on where...