Nonlinear Materials and Processes for Electronic Devices and 3D Optical Storage Memory Applications

Abstract

Many commercial and military applications generate enormous amounts of data which must be stored and be available for rapid parallel access and very fast processing. The major component which is expected to modulate the practical limits of high speed computing, will most probably be the memory. In addition because of the huge data storage requirements, the need for the parallel execution of tasks and necessity of a compact, very high capacity low cost memory is becoming a practical necessity. However, at the present time, CD-ROMs and DVDs and even some of the most advanced optical storage systems, such as the 4.5 GB DVD, are not sufficient to fulfill some of the stringent demands imposed today by multimedia, medical and other applications. This method utilizes the inhomogeniously broadened zero phonon band as the storing medium. Storage media, including magnetic disk, electronic RAM and optical disks are fundamentally limited by their two-dimensional nature. The data capacity is proportional to the storage area divided by the minimum bit size. Three dimensional optical storage surmounts this limitation by extending the storage into the third dimension. They offer, therefore, an attractive possibility for highly parallel access, large storage capacity and high bandwidth memory. To circumvent this deficiency we have developed a high density fast read-out 3D optical storage memory system1–4. Our method relies on the non-linear absorption of two photons which causes changes in the structure and spectra of organic molecules.