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‘Superman Memory Crystal’ 5D Discs Can Store Data for Billions of Years

Scientists at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) say they have made a major step forward in the development of digital data storage that is capable of surviving for billions of years.

Using nanostructured glass, the scientists have developed recording and retrieval processes for five dimensional (5D) digital data using femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented properties including a data capacity of 360 terabytes on one disc, thermal stability up to 1,000°C, and a virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C ) opening a new era of eternal data archiving.

As a very stable and safe form of portable memory, the technology could be useful for organizations that need to preserve huge archives, such as national archives, museums, and libraries.

The technology was first experimentally demonstrated in 2013 when a 300 KB digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D.

Major historical documents—including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Newton’s Opticks, Magna Carta, and the Kings James Bible—have been saved as digital copies that could survive the human race. A copy of the UDHR encoded to 5D data storage was recently presented to UNESCO by the ORC at the International Year of Light (IYL) closing ceremony in Mexico.

The documents were recorded using an ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometers (one millionth of a meter). The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarization of light that can then be read by the combination of an optical microscope and a polarizer, similar to that found in polarized sunglasses.

Coined as the “Superman memory crystal,” as the glass memory has been compared to the “memory crystals” used in Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz. The information encoding is realized in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.

“It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations,” said ORC professor Peter Kazansky. This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilization: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

The researchers are presenting the paper “5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Writing in Glass” today at the International Society for Optical Engineering Conference in San Francisco.