Digital copy of the Bible
A team of researchers at the University of Southampton (UK) is developing a technology for a five-dimensional (5D) optical storage device, the capabilities of which were first demonstrated eight years ago.
Then the scientists managed to use it to record and reproduce a 300 KB text. In their opinion, the potential of the new technology in the future will allow to multiply this figure to 500 terabytes, which will fit only on one disk. A femtosecond laser was used as a recording device, generating short pulses of high power that form nanostructures on the glass.
5D storage
An important advantage of a 5D optical storage device over a hard disk is its resistance to high temperatures and almost "eternal" service life. But still its main advantage is the ability to record data with high density and speed, thanks to the optical effect - near field amplification. It is this effect that forms the necessary nanostructures. As a result, it will be possible to record up to a million voxels per second. For comparison, this is equivalent to about 240 KB of data or a hundred pages of printed text. Scientists hope that the technology they have developed will be used in the future to store archival and museum information, as well as DNA data.
