Jari Ketola
15 Nov 2002 13:20
There has been alot of discussion and speculation on the future of both magnetic and optical storage media in the recent years. Researchers are continuosly looking for new ways to store more data in smaller space. One of the most promising concepts has been so called 3D optical storage. Dual layer DVDs are sort of a 3D storage medium already - you can access two different data from one point on the disc by adjusting the focus of the laser beam. Imagine how much more data you could store, if you could had, say, 20 layers on one DVD.
Researchers at Boston College's Eugene F. Merkert Chemistry Center have done just that. They have developed a material on which they have been able to write several layers of data by modifying the intensity of the laser beam used for reading and writing. Using this method they have managed to create a CD-sized disk capable of storing 87 gigabytes of data - that's nineteen times more than a regular DVD-R holds (4.7GB).
"This all began when we were trying to do something completely different with the materials," said John Fourkas, a chemistry professor who led the research at Boston College's Eugene F. Merkert Chemistry Center. "It was by accident."
Commercial solutions, however, are nowhere in sight - atleasf for now. The researchers haven't been able to even figure out why the material works as it does. Also the mass production of these discs is impossible, since each disc has to be recorded individually - they cannot be manufactured like CDs or DVDs.
Nevertheless this kind of research is essential for future development of all kinds of storage media.
Sources:
Detnews.com
CDFreaks.com