From the beginning of mankind humans are always trying to find a

way to store information for the furture use or the history of humankind,

just like ancient cave art, carvings and printings. Nowadays when people

hear the word storage literally they think about storage devices such as

Hard disk, CD, DVD, USB key. But these digital data storages are not very

durable and limited to capacity. With individuals and organizations

generating ever-larger datasets, we are in desperate need of more efficient

forms of data storage that have a high capacity, low energy consumption

and long lifetime. A group of scientists from University of Southampton has

developed a new technology allowing to do these. They have created a

five dimensional optical memory crystal having experimentally proven a

possibility of recording data into nonstructural glass with the help of high

speed laser, which creates a self assembled nanostructure in fused quartz.

The storage allows uprecedened parameters including 360 TB/disc data

capactiy, thermal stability up to 1000oC and practically unlimited lifetime.

 5D optical memory has nicknames “Quartz Coin” or “Supererman

Memory Crystal” which is given due to its similarities to the “Memory

Crystal” used in the Superman film. The idea of Superman memory crystal

was first coined in 1996 2, 3. The researchers develped an extremely

durable 5D data-storage technique based on imprinting of nanostructures

in silica glass via femtosecond-laser writing – meaning a laser pulse that

lasts for one quadrillionth of a second. The 5D optical memory crystal can

store 360 TB of data on a single disk for indefinite amount of time. The

whole structure is made up of glass and this glass can resist a temperature

of about 1000oC (1800oF). Fused quartz 4 created from practically pure

silica is used as the core components. The memory can store digital

information across the five dimension’s as three dimensions of space

(width, length, height), Orientation (fourth dimension) and Strength of

Retardance (fifth dimension).

 To break this down, let compare this new technology to a CD. When

data is stored on a conventional optical media like a CD, it’s stored by

burning tiny bumps on one or more layers of a plastic disc. This means it’s

stored as bumps using three spatial dimensions: height, length, and witdh.

When the data on a CD is read, a laser light is bounced off the disc,

registering a 1 when the light bounces off a bump and a 0 when there’s no

bump. With those 1s and 0s, it can store anything from books to music to

images. But this new technology of recording data using a femtosecond

laser on a fused quartz disc (pure silica glass), it’s not making a bump like

a CD or a pit like a vinyl, instead it’s creating self-assembled

nanostructures, which are basically layers of 3D dots called “nanograting”.

And this nanograting produces birefringence in the quarts, bringing out

optical properties rooted in its refractive index. And the scientists have

taken advantage of this birefringence to access two “new” optical

dimensions. When data is read from a five-dimensional quartz, the light

being bounced back and read depending on the nanograting’s orientation

is the fourth dimension. The varied strength of the laser’s light refracted by

the structure is the fifth dimension. Add these to the traditional three-axes

of height, length, and width, you get five dimensions.

Data is written into the glass via femtosecond laser moving at high

speed. While write operation zero is indicated by absence of a dot. A ‘dot’

with different reflective index can be used to denote binary one. The

recording process is done by focusing laser to imprint tiny dots called

‘vowels’ in pure silica glass. One file is written in three layers of

nanostructured dots each serparated by five micrometres (one milionth of

a meter), which is less than 0.0002 inches, meaning it’s increadibly

densely packed. Data is recorded at two different levels retardance (1 bit)

and axis orientation (2 bit). Each dot stores three bits of data. The current

writing speed is 12 Kbit/s but this could rise to about 8 Mbit/s using
ferroelectric liquid crystals, and to serveral Gbit/s using magneto-optical

spatial light modulation (MOSLM) 5. And with so much data stored in such

a tiny way, the implications are huge. This storage method means 360

Terabytes of data can be stored in one small crystal. The scientists have

taken major documents like The King Jame Bible, The Magna Carta and

Newton’s Opticks, then put them on this disc.

5D optical storage writing setup

Credit: University of Southampton
The image shows the digital data recorded into 5D optical data storage
Credit: https://www.5dmemorycrystal.com/technology/

But how to read data from this disc. Currently a laser scanning

device used in optical devices is used in Superman memory crystal of

reading data. Another way of reading data from the memory crystal is by

using microscope and a polarizer. The surface contains flat reflective areas

and non-reflective bump. Those areas are detected by using amount of

laser light the reflect. A flat reflective area represents binary 0 and non-

reflective bumps represents binary 1. The intensity distribution at the focal

plane was modulated via spatial light simulator (SLM), which splits the

incident light onto 256 beams. An adapted weighted Gerberg-Saxton is

used to set the split beam energy at several levels at the back focal plane
of objective. The hologram generated on the SLM is re-imaged by 4-f

optical system. In addition, half wave plate matrix, imprinted by laser

nanostructuring of fused silica controls polarization. The erasing and

rewriting of data is also possible in 5D memory crystal. It is done by

replacing nanogratings by changing direction of polarization. The

polarization direction was controlled by the half-wave plates matrix6, where

beams passing through the selected segment can generate the targeted

polarization state.

Color-coded slow axis orientation of half-wave plate matrix imprinted in silica glass1
 By taking advantage of multiple dimensions, each spot in the glass

can store three different bits of information. And while the information on a

CD is superficial and can be scratched off, the data stored in quartz is safe

within the structure of the extremely resilient material. It can withstand

temperatures as high as 1,800oF (1,000oC) and will last virtually forever

stored at room temperature.

This kind of technology could change the way we store and read

data. No more worrying about degrading a video tape or scratching a disk.

The whole of human history could really be saved in a format that could

well outlive the human race. But how does it stack up to

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. J. Zhang, M. Gecevicius, M. Beresna, and P. Kazansky, Eternal 5D
data storage by ultrafast laser writing in glass, 2016

2. E. N. Glezer, M. Milosavljevic, L. Huang, R. J. Finlay, T.-H. Her, J. P.

Callan, and E. Mazur, Three-dimensional optical storage inside
transparent materials, Opt. Lett. 21, pp. 2023–2025, 1996.

3. P. Zijlstra, J. W. M. Chon, and M. Gu, Five-dimensional optical

recording mediated by surface plasmons in gold nanorods, Nature
459, 410 (2009).

4. "Fused quartz." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The

Free Encyclopedia, 23 May. 2018. Web. 29 May. 2018.

5. Dario Borghino (11th July 2013), “Superman memory crystal” could

store hundreds of terabytes indefinitely, New Atlas, Electronics.
Retrieved https://newatlas.com/superman-memory-crystal/28231/

6. J. Zhang, M. Gecevicius, M. Beresna, and P. Kazansky, 5D Data

Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructing in Glass, Optoelectronics
Research Centre, University of Southamption, 2013