The University of Southampton has demonstrated hard disc memory with 360 Terabyte (TB) capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C, and a lifetime of over a million years.
Made out of nanostructured ‘5D’ glass, the University has coined the term “Superman memory crystals” for the technology, owing to the similarity in look and capability to the extra-terrestrial memory storage devices used by the comic-book superhero.
The technology was demonstrated by writing a 300kb text file, which was recorded in the device using a laser which records data in the device across its internal nanostructure.
Jingyu Zhang, who is leading the research at Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) in a joint project with the Eindhoven University of Technology, said: “We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organisations with big archives. At the moment companies have to back up their archives every five to ten years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan. Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit.”
Peter Kazansky, group supervisor at ORC, added: “It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”
Further information on the technology can be found in the paper 5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructuring in Glass. The team behind the memory storage devices is now actively seeking industry partners to commercialise the technology.
