Specially arranged sheets of nano-structured glass might make the storage material of the future, University of Southampton researchers say-- creating storage with a shelf life of over 1 million years and thermal stability of up to 1000°C.
As you might now, modern storage technologies (from magnetic tape and Blu-ray discs to HDDs and SSDs) can only hold data for a few decades or so.
“This is the first time real data has been recorded and retrieved using this technique,” lead researcher Jingyu Zhang says. “We successfully designed a new system and recorded a PDF file inside of the glass.”
A paper titled "5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructuring in Glass" explains the novel-sounding technology. It uses the 5 dimensions of glass-- the traditional 3 (length, width, height) plus axis orientation and "birefringence," meaning the way the material refracts light. Read more...