In an effort to meet growing data demands, a team of Chinese photonics engineers has developed a high-capacity optical drive capable of storing up to 200TB of data. The team's innovative work, published in Naturehas the potential to revolutionize storage technologies, particularly in data centers where space is at a premium.
Traditional DVDs, used to store movies and data, have a capacity of 4.5 GB, enough to store approximately two hours of video. Data is written to the surface of the disk using a laser to etch a series of ones and zeros. However, Technological exploration reports that this new technology developed by the Chinese team takes a completely different approach.
Engineers say they have found a way to store data in three dimensions, rather than a single layer, which will allow them to create an optical disk with up to 100 layers.
Challenges ahead
This new breakthrough was achieved by developing a special coating and using unique light patterns and a dye in the coating that enabled nanoparticle-scale etching. This process has allowed the team to store data at an unprecedented level.
However, the team recognizes that there are still challenges to overcome before these “super DVDs” can be commercialized. The current process of writing data to disk is slow and energy-intensive, problems that the team believes can be rectified. Furthermore, the manufacturing cost of such DVDs and the potential retail price to consumers remain unclear.
Despite these obstacles, the Chinese research team remains optimistic. They believe they are on the right track to sell DVDs capable of storing massive amounts of data, not only to consumers but also to data storage facilities, businesses and media companies.
