Digital storage in five dimensions
Nature
21 May 2009
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In the cause of cramming more and more data onto optical storage devices, materials
scientists have sought to add extra dimensions to recording media, literally. Now a group
from Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology has developed a five-dimensional
optical recording technique with the potential to increase storage capacities by several
orders of magnitude. The extra dimensions are the wavelength and polarization of light,
which integrated with the familiar three spatial dimensions creates true five-dimensional
recording within one volume. The result is a theoretical 1.6 terabytes capacity for a
DVD-sized disk. The new system makes use of surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-mediated
photothermal reshaping of a substrate of gold nanorods immersed in a polymer layer.
Crosstalk-free readout is via two-photon luminescence. Immediate applications can be
found in security patterning and multiplexed optical storage.
Next
Nature
21 May 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the cause of cramming more and more data onto optical storage devices, materials
scientists have sought to add extra dimensions to recording media, literally. Now a group
from Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology has developed a five-dimensional
optical recording technique with the potential to increase storage capacities by several
orders of magnitude. The extra dimensions are the wavelength and polarization of light,
which integrated with the familiar three spatial dimensions creates true five-dimensional
recording within one volume. The result is a theoretical 1.6 terabytes capacity for a
DVD-sized disk. The new system makes use of surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-mediated
photothermal reshaping of a substrate of gold nanorods immersed in a polymer layer.
Crosstalk-free readout is via two-photon luminescence. Immediate applications can be
found in security patterning and multiplexed optical storage.
Next
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