Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab have developed a new type of optical memory that stores data by transferring light from rare-earth element atoms embedded in a solid material to nearby quantum defects. They published their study in Physical Review Research.
The problem that the researchers aim to solve is the diffraction limit of light in standard CDs and DVDs. Current optical storage has a hard cap on data density because each single bit can't be smaller than the wavelength of the reading/writing laser.
The researchers propose bypassing this limit by stuffing the material with rare-earth emitters, such as magnesium oxide (MgO) crystals. The trick, called wavelength multiplexing, involves having each emitter use a slightly different wavelength of light. They theorized that this would allow cramming far more data into the same storage footprint.
The researchers first had to tackle the physics and model all the requirements to build a proof of concept. They simulated a theoretical solid material filled with rare-earth atoms that absorb and re-emit light. The models then showed how the nearby quantum defects could capture and store the returned light.
One of the fundamental discoveries was that when a defect absorbs the narrow wavelength energy from those nearby atoms, it doesn't just get excited – its spin state flips. Once it flips, it is nearly impossible to revert, meaning those defects could legitimately store data for a long time.
While it's a promising first step, some crucial questions still need answers. For example, verifying how long those excited states persist is essential. Details were also light on capacity estimates – the scientists touted "ultra-high-density" but didn't provide any projections against current disc capacities. Yet, despite the remaining hurdles, the researchers are hyped, calling it a "huge first step."
Of course, turning all this into an actual commercial storage product will likely take years of additional research and development.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30, @03:11AM (3 children)
So the translation of this statement is somewhere between "I've solved the interesting research problems. The rest is just business, right?" and "We haven't finished inventing it yet, but when we do, it'll be awesome."
I feel like optical storage "breakthroughs" appear in the news every couple years. I remember reading about 1TB+ optical discs decades ago (this was more than the biggest hard drives available at the time). Obviously nobody ever made them viable. They probably all fail because mass producing discs with exotic materials or processes will likely never make any economical sense to anyone.
There is a reason why even the latest UHD blu-rays are basically the exact same optical technology as LaserDiscs made in 1978, just made smaller with fancier lasers and more accurate manufacturing processes. It's pretty much all to do with the ease of mass production of the discs.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday October 30, @03:28AM (1 child)
TBH, optical media has a lot of issues. I'm not really sure what you'd do with an optical disc with more capacity than the 100gb-ish space that you get on some of the multi-layer Blu rays. SSDs and regular magnetic media can already do several times that capacity for less money. And while it is sometimes useful to have storage that can't be modified, it can be a pain in terms of checking to make sure that it hasn't gone bad. I've had a fair number of audio CDs go bad over the last couple years after less than 30 years, and I've got DVDs starting to go the same way. But, the time it takes just to verify that the discs are still good could be a full-time job for at least a month.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday October 30, @04:24PM
You could use it for a hard-to-erase backup medium. A mere 100gb is much smaller than my hard drive's data. And there's even a chance that this new medium has a chance of surviving a Carrington event.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 30, @05:52PM
Kind of. I used to work at a "broadcast-adjacent" facility and Sony Optical Carts were a thing since the turn of the century. For about $100 you get a recordable disk in a caddy that holds 1.5 TB. Its COTS and being a Sony product its quite expensive.
$100/TB was a pretty good price in 2010.
I looked it up online and the third gen 5.5 TB (not GB, TB) carts are about 5 years old and they're probably last generation as I suspect flash drives are getting "pretty close" to third gen cart prices (and capacities)
Why do broadcast facilities record and keep stuff forever? I don't entirely know. I think its like if some old boomer dies in 2024 and he was interviewed on the news back in 2014 they will run the footage.
Ironically when I looked this up I thought I found it when I found the Sony/Panasonic "AD" system, which this is not. The "AD" system was discontinued this year and only held 1 TB.
The disks are kind of a problem in search of a solution. Latest LTO tapes are cheaper per byte, and flash drives are faster random access. In the middle, unsure what you need a disk for.
I will say the sony optical carts stack nicely in a rack thing. I distinctly remember watching the broadcast guys showing off a wall of about $20K of disks, a good fraction of a petabyte, to the IT guys who thought they were hot stuff for having a couple TB online (at that time, that was a lot). For $20K apparently Sony used to throw in a cool storage rack, looked very sci fi in that "dark gray Battlestar Galactica" sense.
I was not directly involved. Sony being Sony I would assume the ODA drives had special interfaces for special Sony pro camera gear. But sometimes Sony surprises us by not being complete jerks like they historically were.