This seems good news for those who either manage or administrate data migration policies to future proof material and were wondering if Blu-ray was the only large format optical storage option available.

The research, carried out by Mr Peter Zijlstra, Dr James Chon and Professor Min Gu was published in the scientific journal Nature. In the article it describes how the researchers were able to use nanoscopic particles to exponentially increase the amount of information contained on a single disc.

The researchers were also able to introduce an extra dimension onto the disc using polarisation. When they projected light waves onto the disc, the direction of the electric field contained within them aligned with the gold nanorods. This allowed the researchers to record different layers of information at different angles.

“The polarisation can be rotated 360 degrees,” Chon said. “So for example, we were able to record at zero degree polarisation. Then on top of that, we were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarisation, without them interfering with each other.”

Some issues, such as the speed at which the discs can be written on, are yet to be resolved. However the researchers are confident the discs will be commercially available within 5 – 10 years.

The discs are likely to have immediate applications in a range of fields. They would be valuable for storing extremely large medical files such as MRIs and could also provide a boon in the financial, military and security arenas.

Taken from Swinburne Media centre press release.
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/marketing/mediacentre/core/releases_article.php?releaseid=1330

Nature article
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/nature08053.html

For the techies and geeks you can send correspondence to: James W. M. Chon1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.W.M.C. (Email: JChon@groupwise.swin.edu.au), to find out about the “Five-dimensional optical recording mediated by surface plasmons in gold nanorods” that make all this possible.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/nature08053.html

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/marketing/mediacentre/core/releases_article.php?releaseid=1330

Great to hear your views and thoughts on this.