Data storage goes five-dimensional

Most of us are used to living in three dimensions – or four, if we have the time – but researchers in Australia have created what they’re calling a “five-dimensional” storage medium. Their new optical technology could produce discs the same size as DVDs but hold three hundred times as much data.

Doom-mongers can relax – of course, the team from the Swinburne University of Technology aren’t warping spacetime to achieve their results. While traditional CDs and DVDs are said to record data in two dimensions – and holographic discs record in three dimensions – the researchers are utilising three spatial dimensions in conjunction with different wavelengths (i.e. colours) and polarisations of light. Hey presto: five-dimensional discs.

The technology relies on gold nano-rods, which are layered and suspended in clear plastic that’s been spun flat into discs. By using three different colours and two different polarisations of light on their optical media, it’s become possible to write six different patterns of information on one area. Apparently their record is storing a massive 1.1 terabytes per cubic inch – though as yet they still haven’t been able to find out the maximum number of fairies you can fit on a pinhead.

Like with CDs and DVDs, storing data on new 5D discs is a “bit by bit” process, meaning chunks of data can be both written and read in sequence. (It’s because holographic discs don’t work in the same way – recording onto them is much more cumbersome – that you don’t hear much about them these days.) In light of this “industrial scale production of the compact system is possible,” according to James Chon, who co-authored the research.

Dr. Chon says it’ll cost less than three pence for the materials needed to make each 5D disc – and that switching from gold to silver nano-rods could make them a hundred times cheaper. However, it’s the price of writing the discs that could scupper large scale production in the future, though people once said that about Blu-ray too. For the moment, the Swinbourne Uni team is working with Samsung to create a 5D drive that can read and write DVD-sized discs.

[ Technology Review | BBC ]