Glass memory crystals could provide long-term data storage

Daily Mail : Researchers at the UK’s University of Southampton have developed millimeter-sized memory devices made of glass. The team, led by Peter Kazansky at the university’s Optoelectronics Research Center, used ultrashort laser pulses to imprint tiny dots called voxels (like three-dimensional pixels) in pure silica glass. The voxels can then be read using an optical decoder, and users can write or delete data as often as they like. The crystals can store more than conventional hard drives, are less prone to overheating or damage, and can last indefinitely. Since publication of their work in May in Applied Physics Letters, the researchers have developed the technology further and adapted it for a five-dimensional optical recording.