Abstract
It is challenging to store the exponentially increasing amount of data in the information age. The multiplexed optical data storage with merits of high data density (hundreds of terabytes/disk), low energy consumption, and long lifetime could open a new era in data storage technology. The recent progress in five-dimensional (5D) optical data storage based on anisotropic nanostructures written by femtosecond (fs) laser pulses in transparent materials reveals its potential for real-world applications, but high writing speed and density remain a major challenge. Here, we propose a method for rapid and energy-efficient writing of highly localized anisotropic nanostructures in silica glass by energy modulated megahertz-rate fs pulses. An isotropic nanovoid is initially generated with pulse energy above the microexplosion threshold and then elongated to an anisotropic nanolamella-like structure via the near-field enhancement effect by lower energy pulses, minimizing the unwanted thermal effects from megahertz-rate fs pulses. The anisotropic nanostructures are exploited for 5D data storage with a rate of 10 6 v o x e l s / s , corresponding to a demonstrated fast information recording of ∼ 225 k B / s and a potentially high-density data storage of ∼ 500 T B / d i s k .
Highlights
The current storage technology is not growing fast enough to keep up with the vast amount of digital data generated worldwide
A matrix of voxels was imprinted in silica glass by pulses (E = 30 nJ) with different repetition rates from 1 to 10 MHz [Fig. 1(b)] and pulse number from 20 to 100
We demonstrated the rapid writing of highly localized nanolamella-like structures in silica glass using energy deposition control via near-field enhancement
Summary
The current storage technology is not growing fast enough to keep up with the vast amount of digital data generated worldwide. To meet the ever-increasing data storage demand, cloud providers rely on many storage technologies including hard disk drives (HDDs), magnetic tape, and even optical disks. The drawbacks of the HDDs are their high energy consumption and their short lifespan of several years [1], and the long average-case response time of magnetic tapes prevents their application. Optical data storage has been heralded as an energy-efficient solution with a longer lifetime, but traditional optical data storage technology of CDs and DVDs only has a capacity of hundreds of gigabits per disk and a lifetime of a decade. Advances in the femtosecond (fs) laser writing in wide bandgap materials have opened a door to high-density data storage with a long lifespan by rapid energy deposition with high precision [3,4]. The high-capacity optical recording was demonstrated by multiplexing new degrees of freedom including intensity, polarization, and wavelength by
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