Solid and not very expensive, optical discs like DVD and Blu-Ray are however today limited by the quantity of data they can contain. A limit which could soon disappear if researchers from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology carry out their current project.
What is a 1.6 petabit disk?££££
They are in fact developing a disk the size of a Blu Ray (the usual 12 cm disk) capable of containing 1.6 petabit of data or 200,000 GB, i.e. 2,000 times more than the capacity of an Ultra HD Blu-Ray or 24 times that of the largest hard drive of the moment, or even all the data transported on the Internet every second! In detail, this “3D nanoscale” optical disc can contain up to 100 layers of data, compared to 3 for an Ultra HD Blu-Ray.
Technically, this disk uses a new light-sensitive material called AIE-DDPR, as well as two types of laser for reading: blue 480 nm and orange 592 nanometers. The researchers believe that these blank discs could be manufactured on current DVD production lines without incurring new infrastructure costs.
A word to Min Gu, professor at the Shanghai University of Science and Technology££££
This format could one day replace the current Ultra HD Blu-Ray, although its enormous capacity will certainly see it more used in high capacity storage centers. "The use of ultra-high density optical data storage technology in large data centers is now possible," says Min Gu, professor of optical-electrical and computer engineering at the University of Science and Technology of Shanghai.
