The 5D Disc

It is a breakthrough in portable storage yet it is a surprise how easily gold nanorods can be used to store so much information.

Thanks to, Peter Zijlstra, James W.M. Chon, and Min Gu from the Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, storing data up to 10 terabytes on a portable disc would no longer be impossible. These brilliant minds have found a way to combine the addressing of data using wavelength, polarization and the spatial three dimensions to create a five dimensional addressable space. The team had recently published a report in the journal called "Nature" in which they explain the development of five dimensional storage of up to 10 terabytes on a disc.

These allows storing a terabit worth of information in a cubic centimeter of space. Even though storing information into a three dimensional medium has been a epic in holographic storage and a many other ways of addressing data have been tried out in various manners, this team has projected information into the material using different color wavelengths. To add, additional data the used polarizing of light, which after a fixed orientation rotates the filter 90 degrees. The data can be easily read by a technique called, "longitudinal SPR mediated 2-photon luminescence" this term though sounds complex can easily be understood using Google or Wikipedia

We all though understand that, new ideas or technology are not always backed up with resources the same affects this development according to the researchers, as the recording medium required is extremely selective. Yet, Samsung has already shown it's interests.