New Technology to Enable 1PetaByte Optical Discs. -- Researchers Develop 1000TB Optical Discs

Xbitlabs ^ | 06/24/2013 07:42 PM | Anton Shilov

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Researchers Develop 1000TB Optical Discs

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Image at web site

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A research team at Swinburne University of Technology has overcome a fundamental law of optical science that could lead to faster and more energy-efficient optical computing. It would allow Petabyte storage on a single disc.

“The new technique produces a focal spot that is 1 ten thousandth of a human hair, enabling more data to be written to disc,” said Min Gu, director of the centre for micro-photonics at Swinburne.

The team – professor Gu, PhD student Zongsong Gan and Yaoyu Cao from the centre for micro-photonics, and professor Richard Evans from CSIRO – has developed a breakthrough technique that enables three-dimensional optical beam lithography at nine nanometres.

The technique overcomes a fundamental law discovered in 1873 by German scientist Ernst Abbe, who determined that a light beam focused by a lens cannot produce a focal spot smaller than half of the wavelength or 500nm for visible light. This law enabled the development of modern optical microscopy, an indispensable tool in physics, chemistry, material science and biological science. However, this fundamental law also set up a barrier for scientists to access small structures in the nanometre scale.

 “Optical beam lithography is the ultimate approach to 3D nanofabrication. However, the diffraction nature of light prevents us from achieving nanometre resolution in a single-beam optical beam lithography system,” said Mr. Gu.

Professor Gu said by using a second donut-shaped beam to inhibit the photopolymerisation triggered by the writing beam in the donut ring, two-beam optical beam lithography can break the limit defined by the diffraction spot size of the two focused beams. He said the key to 3D deep sub-diffraction optical beam lithography was the development with CSIRO of a unique two-photon absorption resin.

“This enabled a two-channel chemical reaction associated with the polymerisation and its counterpart of inhibited polymerisation, respectively, which eventually attributed to build mechanically robust nanostructures.  Thus, the development of the vertical integration of integrated circuits, leading to ultra-fast optical information signal processors, becomes possible in the near future,” explained Mr. Gu.

This is a goal of the centre for excellence for ultrahigh-bandwidth devices for optical systems, funded by the Australian research council.

 “Worldwide generated information doubles every two years. This breakthrough could lead to reduced cost and reduced energy consumption in data storage,” said the head of the research.

[ShadowAce]

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Peta is a thousand trillion? Washington Democrats thank you! They were worried that they’d be stuck at just hundreds of trillions of dollars.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

How does lithography impact storage,...I maybe am missing simethib here.

[ClearCase_guy]

Overcoming a fundamental law of physics

Sweet!

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

I remember when the CD ROM was the Holy Grail of optical storage.

[CottShop]

[[Overcoming a fundamental law of physics]]

Woohoo- perpetual motion machines in the near future-

[dfwgator]

That’ll store a lot of pr0n.

[cuban leaf]

the development with CSIRO of a unique two-photon absorption resin.

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I wondered if the article would get to that. It’s the same principle used by the device that was used to transport me to this assignment from my home world. The return trip is slower - at least the part to the transmitter on the dark side of the moon.

[ClearCase_guy]

But why bother?

'640K of memory should be enough for anybody.'

NOTE: although often attributed to Bill Gates, apparently he never actually said this.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The sequence is actually 1024 times....

Binary system so we have ....2, 4. 8, 16,32, 64, 128, 256, 512. 1024.

Now for the words,...we have Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte, Exabyte, Zetabyte....etc

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Next some lab will overturn the speed of light as the ultimate speed.

[wally_bert]

I can put everything in the numerous boxes of burned discs on one eventually.

[Springfield Reformer]

So, OK, when do those 4T drives at Best Buy start coming down in price? And when can I get my entire personal collection of digital stuff on a single disk, which I can then lose in my couch or otherwise misplace?

Or better yet, when will MS come out with its first multi-Terabyte OS, based on the principle that all available storage space, no matter how large, are belong to them?

[Bob]

But why bother?

'640K of memory should be enough for anybody.'

NOTE: although often attributed to Bill Gates, apparently he never actually said this.

Given the costs of memory at the time the statement was made, the whole idea of buying more than 640k was ludicrous.

An upgrade from 64k to 128k was extremely expensive in the early 1980s. While I don't recall the exact numbers, I'm fairly sure that such an upgrade would have easily cost hundreds of dollars.

[ShadowAce]

Lithography is merely the art, or act, or writing. It’s got everything to do with storage. :)

[ShadowAce]

of writing.....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

You ask some tough questions....I am still working on understandding the Graphic that goes with the article...

says 3D Fabrication of Multilayer....

[cuban leaf]

I thought someone had already done that. ;-)

[Gay State Conservative]

Just think of all the data some $100K/yr floor sweeper at IRS Headquarters could carry around in his pocket...ready to sell to the highest bidder.