Data storage of 500TB in the size of a CD?

Blu-ray discs, which appeared after DVD, are single-layer discs that can store 25 GB of data, and two-layer discs are a large-capacity storage medium that can store 50 GB of data. In addition, a technology that can write data with a density more than 10,000 times that of a Blu-ray disc and store it for a long time by performing nanoscale processing on glass with a laser has been announced.

Data generated worldwide is explosively increasing due to the convenient spread of the cloud, but hard disks with high energy consumption and short lifespan are mainly used for data center storage that processes such data. In addition, optical disks such as CDs and DVDs have a small capacity, and advanced DNA storage that can write more than 100TB per 1g has a problem in durability.

In the past, five-dimensional data storage that writes data to glass with a laser was developed to solve the problem of lifespan or durability, but it was not practical because the speed of writing data was slow and the capacity was not very large.

A research team at the University of Southampton in the UK, working to improve this task, formed a nanostructure as small as 500 × 50 nanometers on glass using a high-repetition femtosecond laser. In this case, the research team used an optical phenomenon called near-field enhancement rather than writing directly to glass with a femtosecond laser. This method of forming nanostructures using weak light pulses is said to have made it possible to minimize thermal damage, which has been a problem in the use of high-repetition lasers.

Because the nanostructure has anisotropy, birefringence occurs, and the direction and size of the nanostructure written on the glass can be controlled. By combining this optical two-dimensional and spatial three-dimensional writing, the research team succeeded in creating a five-dimensional data storage that can be written faster than before.

The research team said that this new approach can increase the data writing speed to a practical level and write large data in a reasonable time. It said that it is possible to reduce energy consumption by adopting pulsed light that can

Using this technology, the research team was able to burn 5GB of text data onto a glass disk the same size as a regular CD with almost 100% accuracy. If the system is further improved in the future, it is said that it is possible to write 500TB of data on a CD-size glass disk for 60 days. Because 5D data storage has the advantage of being able to store data semi-permanently, the research team assumes that the cloud stores data temporarily. it is stated that Related information can be found here.