Information Storage in Three Dimensions

Via Physorg.com -

For the first time, researchers have successfully turned a glass material into three-dimensional information storage using a light-based technique. This achievement may be a big step forward for the real-life implementation of such materials, which have the potential to store terabits of data (1,000 gigabits, or about 125 gigabytes) in just a single cubic centimeter.

The research was performed by scientists from the University of Bordeaux 1, one of the four universities in Bordeaux, France. The work is described in a paper published in the February 13, 2008, online edition of Optics Letters.

“The necessity for increasing data storage capacity of memory devices, along with the growth of high-density technologies, requires the use of three-dimensional optically based systems,” said physicist Lionel Canioni, one of the paper's authors, to PhysOrg.com.

There are a few methods being explored for optical-based three-dimensional information storage. One method is based on the phenomenon of “photochromism,” which, simply put, is when a material can reversibly change color -- i.e. undergo a chemical change -- when exposed to electromagnetic radiation (light). An everyday example are “transition”-type sunglass lenses.

Photochromism is an example of “single-photon” excitation, meaning that each photon in the light source (such as a laser beam) excites a single electron in the material. When those electrons quickly become de-excited, they each emit a single photon with almost the same energy as the absorbed photon.

Another promising method, explored by Canioni and his colleagues, involves multi-photon excitation—the excited electrons each absorb multiple photons—and is therefore a bit more sophisticated. Because each electron that is excited absorbs more than one photon, the laser interacts with a smaller volume of material. This allows the storage material to be activated with a higher spatial resolution in three dimensions, which allows for a larger information storage density.

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Awesome, the future is going to be sweet...