Researchers at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have made advances in designing data storage formats – 5D Memory Crystal, capable of storing information for billions of years. This could be an opening of a new era in eternal data archiving.
Scientists have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five-dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing and using nanostructured glass. 5D Memory Crystal can store up to 360 Terabytes (TB) of information, with thermal stability of up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C).
This crystal technology was first experimented with in 2013 and it successfully stored a 300 kb digital copy of a text file in 5D. In 2014, it was awarded the Guinness World Record for the most durable data storage material.
5D Memory Crystal is equivalent to the most chemically and thermally durable materials, fused quartz. It can withstand extreme ends of freezing and even tolerate scorching temperatures of up to 1000 °C. Moreover, the crystal can resist a direct impact force of up to 10 tons/cm2 and is even unaffected by long exposure to cosmic radiation.
Unlike writing on the surface of paper (2D), this method of encoding uses two optical dimensions and three spatial co-ordinates in noting the information into nanostructured voids of 20 nanometres. Therefore, the technology is named 5D. This inscribed can be read using an optical microscope and a polarizer.
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5D Memory Crystal – a landmark moment in restoring species
Even though with the current technology, we have not been able to create plants or animals synthetically, future technology might triumph in it. To recreate, for instance, endangered plant or animal species faced with extinction, the technology will need a record of the genomes. To create enduring prints of these genomes, the team created a 5D memory crystal of the full human genome, containing 3 billion letters in it.
Professor Peter Kazansky, from the ORC, says: “We know from the work of others that genetic material of simple organisms can be synthesized and used in an existing cell to create a viable living specimen in a lab,”
“The 5D memory crystal opens up possibilities for other researchers to build an everlasting repository of genomic information from which complex organisms like plants and animals might be restored should science in the future allow.”, Professor Kazansky continued.
The crystals made are stored in the Memory of Mankind archive – a special time capsule within a salt cave in Hallstatt, Austria. Also, while crafting the crystals, the team assumed a visionary approach, where they considered the upcoming technology to retrieve data.
“We don’t know if memory crystal technology will ever follow these plaques in distance traveled but each disc can be expected with a high degree of confidence to exceed their survival time,” adds Prof Kazansky.