A new type of glass that’s etched with a bird design appears differently when exposed to different lasers. Credit: Adapted from ACS Energy Letters 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.5c00024
Posted on 02/26/2025 6:21:53 AM PST by ShadowAce
Researchers have developed a new type of photochromic glass that can store and rewrite data indefinitely.
By embedding magnesium and terbium, they’ve created a material that changes colors under different wavelengths of light, allowing for high-density, long-term storage without power. This breakthrough could revolutionize data preservation.
For years, scientists have explored the potential of glass as a long-term data storage medium, drawn to its ability to preserve information for eons without requiring power. One promising candidate is photochromic glass, a special type of glass that changes color when exposed to different wavelengths of light. Now, researchers have developed a doped photochromic glass that can potentially store and rewrite data indefinitely, according to a study published today (February 26) in ACS Energy Letters.
A familiar example of photochromism can be seen in certain eyeglasses that darken in sunlight and return to a clear state indoors, a process known as reversible photochromism. Similarly, some photochromic glass materials can change color based on specific wavelengths of light, making them an appealing, cost-effective option for high-density data storage. However, the challenge lies in not just encoding information but also being able to erase and rewrite it repeatedly.
Now, a research team led by Jiayan Liao, Ji Zhou, and Zhengwen Yang has made significant progress by developing reversible, tunable patterns in photochromic gallium silicate glass, bringing this futuristic technology one step closer to reality.
A new type of glass that’s etched with a bird design appears differently when exposed to different lasers. Credit: Adapted from ACS Energy Letters 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.5c00024
The team first designed gallium silicate glass modified with magnesium and terbium ions by using a process called doped direct 3D lithography. Liao and the team used a green 532-nanometer (nm)-wavelength laser to inscribe 3D patterns into tiny slabs of the doped glass.
The intricate patterns, randomly chosen dots, symbols, QR codes, geometric prisms, and even a bird, appear purple in the transparent glass, which turns other colors when excited at precise wavelengths. Terbium luminesces green when excited by a deep violet 376 nm laser, and magnesium luminesces red in the presence of violet light at 417 nm.
Then, to fully erase the patterns without changing the structure of the glass, the team applied heat at 1022 degrees Fahrenheit (550 degrees Celsius) for 25 minutes.
Furthermore, the researchers consider the use of magnesium and terbium groundbreaking for their abilities to luminesce at distinctly different wavelengths, which makes it possible to get a tunable, multicolor readout of 3D patterns from a single material. The new approach could be used for high-capacity, stable 3D optical memory storage, and encryption in industrial, academic, and military applications.
Reference: “Direct 3D Lithography of Reversible Photochromic Patterns with Tunable Luminescence in Amorphous Transparent Media” 26 February 2025, ACS Energy Letters.
DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.5c00024
Well…isn’t this how Superman stored all of his knowledge from Krypton?
And the material for glass is superabundent
That was the same thing I was thinking! The crystals that had the information encoded in that Superman movie.
Just don’t drop it.
I’m a retired mainframe dinosaur, was a database specialist as an independent consultant. This stuff still interests me, and I remember when they were exploring quartz crystals for storage, never really followed up on the research.
Like thendidsks in Star Trek’s “All Our Yesterdays”.
Ahhh, but terbium is one of the rarest of rare earth minerals
There is a long list of media that still contains useful information that is lost forever for want of a device to read it. I know this first hand.
Don’t worry, its gorilla glass
It’ll never replace lenticular gag shop spectacles.
The hippies were right. Crystals have awesome powers.
I went through two periods as a company’s IT director where we transferred important data from older media to what would be our newest media, to be sure, in spite of time, we could still get to it if needed.
I did it at home, a number of times, with my PCs, as older data storage media was becaming obsolete.
Just for show, I still have a few 5 1/2 inch floppy disks on an office bookshelf.
Ahh, but do you have any 12 inch floppies?...........
So do I, along with the 8" variety. ;-D
I also have a collection of fuse-link, UV-PROM, and EEPROM memory devices.
I wish I had a set of AM2900 bit-slice elements.
I did a safety system for NASA in Huntsville that included 14" floppies for announcement playback. Those were just pitiful.
I believe so.
That’s right.
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