New laser recording technology will allow storage of 700 TB of data on optical disks

Scientists have developed subdiffraction laser recording technology that allows the creation of nanoscale bits on optical storage media.

The volume of information created by humanity is regularly increasing, and every year the issue of its storage becomes more and more acute.The researchers estimate that in 4 years, the total amount of data generated will reach175 zettabytes (175∙1021 bytes).The opening of more and more data centers that consume a huge amount of energy needed to power hard driveswith a maximum capacity of 2 TB and a lifespan of 3-5 years.

At the same time, optical storage technology,such as DVDs are already quite well developed, but their main disadvantage is their small storage capacity. This problem was solved by a group of scientists from the Shanghai University of Science and Technology, the Royal University of Technology of Melbourne and the National University of Singapore.

Using a new nanocomposite material fromgraphene oxide flakes and up-conversion nanoparticles, they have achieved a significant increase in data density through the developed low-power optical recording system. The laser platform they have created allows you to store up to 700 TB of information on a standard-sized disc (diameter 12 cm), which is comparable to the volume of 0.5 million DVDs.

Although the technology still needs to be improved, the research results open up new perspectives for solving the global data storage problem.

Previously, we also reported on the discovery of a new method of storing information using light.

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