Can you imagine an unlimited life of information storage?
For years we have evolved the way we store our information, from tape cassettes, through diskettes, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, to mechanical hard drives and now SSD drives, which continue to grow in an impressive way, reaching a capacity that years ago sounded simply impossible.
The researchers at the University of Southampton created a "small" hard disk of quartz crystal capable of storing more than 300 TeraBytes, in a smaller size than you could imagine, it has dimensions no larger than those of a compact disc.
According to the researchers, storage can hold up to 1,000ºC and life of between 13.8 billion years to 190 billion years. This translates into an unlimited lifespan that would become a great advantage for organizations and companies that need to archive a large volume of files.
The life of a CD or a hard disk is limited to several decades so these researchers are perfecting the quartz crystal, to archive information forever.
In order to store the information in binary data within five dimensions of printed points, in these small quartz crystal discs (a material resistant to water, heat, radiation and most chemical compounds), the information is recorded at through short and intense pulses. The file is written in three layers of nano-structured dots that are separated by five micrometers. This structure, once recorded, is read through another laser.
According to the team of researchers, this system could serve to store elements of historical importance such as cultural issues or public documents.
They have not yet resolved when this new technology will be put into circulation, but it is said that the first albums will be able to offer the service to museums and government agencies, which will have to send their information so that it is properly coded.
"It can guarantee the evidence of the existence of our civilization and that everything we learn will not be forgotten", said one of the researchers.
This storage technique is not something new, in 2013 the first storage tests on quartz began and today we have documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bible and the Magna Carta, all stored in these small discs of glass, but the achievement on this time is the development and expansion of the structure, which will give the possibility of having a large storage capacity.
Russian scientists seek to improve it
The so-called now, "SUPERMAN" crystal memory (for its clear reference to the glass fortress and the crystals he uses to decode his information), is capable of recording a huge volume of information on a relatively small disk, over a period of time, virtually unlimited.
The only disadvantage that the new device currently has is that it is not yet rewritable. That is precisely the problem that Russian researchers at the Mendeleev University are trying to solve.
For this purpose they proposed to renounce some of the properties of the quartz disk, such as reducing its thermal stability to 400 degrees Celsius and manufacturing the glass of various components.
Before recording the information, the researchers will treat the disc with a femtosecond laser. This device releases ultra-short pulses of light, which allows the material to be treated with high precision.
The molten quartz memory could allow the conversion of entire libraries and national archives into the digital format, which could practically store the entire history and knowledge of mankind for several million years.
