Researchers have used lasers on a material used in nuclear fuel to create a quasi-eternal data storage medium – super-hard silicon carbide DVD-style disks could have a capacity of 677 GB
The daily creation of data is taking off enormously. The past two years alone have reportedly generated 90% of the world’s data, with daily estimates of 330 million terabytes. However, traditional storage media have a limited lifespan.
Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) say they have used lasers on silicon carbide, a material used in nuclear fuel, to develop a new form of high-capacity media that could potentially revolutionize the way we store data.
The team, led by Dr. Georgy Astakhov from the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research at HZDR, says the solution to the problem is to create a new long-term data storage concept that uses atomic-scale defects in silicon carbide. These defects, caused by a focused beam of protons or helium ions, provide high spatial resolution, high write speed, and low power consumption for storing a single bit.
Overcome existing limitations
The HZDR team’s method overcomes the limitations of current data storage solutions by using 4D encoding schemes. This includes checking the lateral position and depth, as well as the number of defects, allowing data to be read optically via photoluminescence. The surface storage density can be further improved using focused electron beam excitation.
The researchers believe that the data stored in these silicon carbide disks will last for generations, depending on environmental conditions. βThe temperature-dependent deactivation of these defects suggests a minimum retention time over a few generations under ambient conditions,β says Astakhov.
With near-infrared laser excitation, modern encoding techniques and multi-layer data storage, the team expects to achieve a storage density equivalent to that of Blu-ray discs. If electron beam excitation is used instead of optical excitation for data readout, the storage density could match the current record for prototype magnetic tapes, but with longer storage time and lower power consumption.
This groundbreaking research, which is not limited to silicon carbide and can be extended to other materials with optically active defects, potentially represents an important step toward meeting the challenging demands of data storage.