Although many depend on the cloud to store a large part of our information (be they photos, documents, movies, etc.) physical supports remain equally important, not only when saving data, but also when increasing the processing power of microchips. Therefore, The greater the physical support of a memory, the better.
Now, a team of scientists from the University of Chicago, led by Leonardo França, has devised a way of storing and reading data from individual atoms embedded in tiny crystals of just a few cubic millimeters. If it expands, it could one day give rise to ultraalta storage systems capable of housing data petabytes in a single disk, where 1 PB is equivalent to approximately 5000 4K movies.
Data coding As some and zeros is as old as the history of computer science, with the only difference in the medium used to store them: From vacuum tubes that lit and turned off intermittently, to tiny electronic transistors or even compact discs (CD), with surface clefts that represent some and a smooth surface that indicates the zeros.
Now an even more dense data storage is sought, which is taking scientists to the subatomic world. Franca’s team has published a study in Nanophotonics, in which they demonstrate how The use of an electron trapped by a defect in a glass can be used to represent a 1while the absence of a trapped electron indicates a 0.
Technology works by applying a laser with a specific amount of energy that excites an electron. At this point, a reading device can record the presence of light. Without light, there is no trapped electron.
This It only works when crystals present defects, such as an oxygen vacancy or a strange impurity. These defects have very interesting characteristics, including the ability to store load.
While the Franca team used PRASODIMIO, an element of rare earth, and a crystal of Ititrium oxide, the work could also be extended to Other rare earth crystals. However, rare earths have the advantage of providing known and specific wavelengths that allow exciting electrons using standard lasers.
The good news is that The optical and laser component of the equation is already well understood and is economical. Also, producing large -scale glass would cost little money. This is pending the cost of acquiring the elements of rare earths and devising a way of introducing defects by mass manufacturing methods. The final question would be data storage density on a hypothetical disc.
“In our crystal, where we have about 40 mm³ (approximately a drop of water) we could store a few hundred Terabytes – França explains in a statement -. After performing some calculations, the figure would be approximately 260 tb”
But this figure is based on the glass they used at the University of Chicago and França A future in which defect density could be easily increased. This, naturally, leads to the possibility of storing data PB in a single device for the size of a disc.