Blu-Ray is beginning to gain traction but maybe that’s going to be too late now as a new type of storage medium could make Blu-Ray look tiny. Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology are working on a new storage system which uses nanotechnology to create five dimensional discs which have a massive storage capacity. By using nanotechnology it allows the disc to stay the same physical size.
Discs currently have three spatial dimensions, but using nanoparticles the Swinburne researchers were able to introduce a spectral or colour dimension as well as a polarisation dimension
By adding 2 extra dimensions it allows these ultra-high capacity discs to be created.
The colour dimension was created by using gold nanorods which are on the discs surface. These particles react to light allowing various colour wavelengths to be used on the same disc location creating even more capacity. A normal DVD is only recorded with a single colour wavelength meaning that the surface can only store 1 item of data at a particular point on the disc.
The researchers were also able to introduce an extra dimension onto the disc using polarisation. When they projected light waves onto the disc, the direction of the electric field contained within them aligned with the gold nanorods. This allowed the researchers to record different layers of information at different angles.
With the polarisation being capable of rotation at 360 degrees it allows for several layers of information to be stored at 90 degree angles to each other with no interference.
The downsides of such high capacity is the complexity of it. Recording and reading is not the quickest just yet with the procedure being so complex. But, that certainly doesn’t mean it’s not possible to speed it up. Hopefully over the next few years we will see technology like this being made publicly available.
Full details to be found over at Swinburne.
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