LAYERED MATERIAL HOLDS MORE DATA

Abstract

CLEVER GEOMETRY IS THE basis of a new material that is said to be ideal for secure data encryption and dense optical information storage { Adv. Mater. , 16 , 516 (2004)}. material consists of a lattice of onionlike spheres in which the particle core and its layers each contain a different dye. material can hold four or more pieces of information in one spot—not just two as in binary optical data storage. And it opens a door to high-density three-dimensional optical data storage. The approach is really simple, says lead researcher Eugenia Kumacheva, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto, who worked with postdocs Ilya Gourevich and Hung H. Pham and microscopist James E. N. Jonkman. They start with colored colloids—polymeric nanospheres labeled with a dye—for example, an ultraviolet dye. Then they envelop the nanosphere, what Kumacheva calls the core, with a shell of another polymer labeled ...