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5D Memory Superman

Researchers at the Academy of Southampton'southward Optoelectronics Research Centre accept adult a new form of data storage that could potentially survive for billions of years. The research consists of nanostructured glass that can tape digital data in five dimensions using femtosecond laser writing.

The crystal storage contains 360TB per disc and is stable at upwardly to 1,000 degrees celsius. Y'all record information using an ultra-fast laser that produces short and intense pulses of light — on the order of one quadrillionth of a second each — and it writes the file in fused quartz, in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometers. Reading the data back requires pulsing the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation again, and recording the polarization of the waves with an optical microscope and polarizer. The five dimensions consist of the size and orientation in improver to the three-dimensional position of the nanostructures.

The group coined the storage the "Superman retentivity crystal" afterwards the crystals found in the Superman films.

"It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in infinite for future generations," professor Peter Kazansky, from the Optoelectronics Research Center, said in a argument. "This technology can secure the last show of our civilization: all we've learnt volition not be forgotten."

5D Memory

The group says the crystals have a most unlimited lifetime at room temperature, or 13.viii billion twelvemonth lifespan at 190 degrees Celsius (hey, that's the age of the Universe). In 2013, the researchers starting time stored a 300K text file in five dimensions using the aforementioned technology. So far, the group has encoded major documents from homo history like the Universal Declaration of Human being Rights (UDHR), Newton'southward Opticks, the Magna Carta, and the King James Bible every bit digital copies that could theoretically survive humans on our planet.

There's no give-and-take yet on the speed of data storage or the cost of the materials or lasers necessary to create these crystals; we imagine they're non something you're going to be able to club from Newegg next calendar week. Nonetheless, the group plans to present the research at the International Social club for Optical Engineering Briefing in San Francisco this calendar week. It says the storage could be useful for national archives, museums, libraries, and other organizations with tremendous amounts of data to store.

Back in August, a team of scientists presented a way to use genetic textile — DNA — to shop virtually unlimited amounts of information for 2,000 years or more. DNA storage isknown to exist extremely slow, even with modern, high-throughput sequencing. But like the Superman memory crystals described above, nosotros're talking about massive archival data storage, non booting into Fallout 4 more than quickly.