5D optical data storage (also branded as Superman memory crystal, a reference to the Kryptonian memory crystals from the

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

franchise) is an

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

nanostructure A nanostructure is a structure of intermediate size between microscopic and molecular structures. Nanostructural detail is microstructure at nanoscale. In describing nanostructures, it is necessary to differentiate between the number of dimen ...

d glass for permanently recording digital data using a femtosecond laser writing process. Discs using this technology could be capable of storing up to worth of data (at the largest size, 12 cm discs) for billions of years. The concept was experimentally demonstrated in 2013.

Hitachi () is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1910 and headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company is active in various industries, including digital systems, power and renewable ener ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

have researched glass-based optical storage techniques, the latter under the name Project Silica. The "5-dimensional" descriptor is because, unlike marking only on the surface of a 2D piece of paper or magnetic tape, this method of encoding uses two optical dimensions and three spatial co-ordinates to write throughout the material, which suggested the name '5D data crystal'. No exotic

higher dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coo ...

al properties are involved. The size, orientation and three-dimensional position of the nanostructures comprise the so-called five dimensions.

Technical design

The concept is to store data optically in non-

photosensitive Photosensitivity is the amount to which an object reacts upon receiving photons, especially visible light. In medicine, the term is principally used for abnormal reactions of the skin, and two types are distinguished, photoallergy and phototoxicity. ...

transparent materials such as

fused quartz Fused quartz, fused silica or quartz glass is a glass consisting of almost pure silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) in amorphous (non-crystalline) form. This differs from all other commercial glasses, such as soda-lime glass, lead glass, or borosi ...

, which has high chemical stability. Recording data using a femtosecond-laser was first proposed and demonstrated in 1996. The storage medium consists of fused quartz, where the spatial dimensions, intensity, polarization, and wavelength are used to modulate data. By introducing

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

silver nanoparticle Silver nanoparticles are nanoparticles of silver of between 1 nm and 100 nm in size. While frequently described as being 'silver' some are composed of a large percentage of silver oxide due to their large ratio of surface science, surf ...

s embedded in the material, their

plasmon In physics, a plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation. Just as light (an optical oscillation) consists of photons, the plasma oscillation consists of plasmons. The plasmon can be considered as a quasiparticle since it arises from the quant ...

ic properties can be exploited. According to the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

: Recorded data can be read with a combination of an optical microscope and a polarizer. The technique was first demonstrated in 2009 by researchers at the

Swinburne University of Technology The Swinburne University of Technology (or simply Swinburne) is a public university, public research university in Melbourne, Australia. It is the modern descendant of the Eastern Suburbs Technical College established in 1908, renamed Swinburne ...

and in 2010 by Kazuyuki Hirao's laboratory at the Kyoto University, and developed further by Peter Kazansky's research group at the Optoelectronics Research Centre,

. Discs recorded from that time have been tested for 3100 hours at 100°C and shown to still work "perfectly" ten years later.

Uses

In 2018, Professor Peter Kazansky used the technology to store a copy of

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

's Foundation trilogy, which was launched into space aboard Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in association with the Arch Mission Foundation. In 2024, Kazansky's group encoded the three billion character

human genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as the DNA within each of the 23 distinct chromosomes in the cell nucleus. A small DNA molecule is found within individual Mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria. These ar ...

and etched it onto a coin-sized 5D disc. It includes a visual key explaining how to use it, in homage to the Pioneer plaques that were placed on board the 1972 ''

Pioneer 10 ''Pioneer 10'' (originally designated Pioneer F) is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. ''Pioneer 10'' became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed ...

'' and 1973 ''

Pioneer 11 ''Pioneer 11'' (also known as ''Pioneer G'') is a NASA robotic space probe launched on April 5, 1973, to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, the solar wind, and cosmic rays. It was the first probe to Exploration ...

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

s. It is stored in the Memory of Mankind archive, located in the world's oldest salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria.

References

{{reflist

External links

Marketing website of the Southampton research team
Big data Solid-state computer storage media Non-volatile memory Digital preservation

Technical design

Uses

See also

References

External links