October 20, 2014
Successful read/write of digital data in fused silica glass with a recording density equivalent to Blu-ray Disc™
Hitachi, Ltd. today announced that, in collaboration with Professor MIURA Kiyotaka of the School of Engineering, Kyoto University, it has successfully achieved read/write of digital data in 100 layers of fused silica glass, a recording density comparable to Blu-ray Disc™. One hundred multi-layer data recording was verified by the application of newly developed noise reduction technology to overcome interference from data recorded on other layers while trying to access data written in deeper layers within the fused silica glass.
Fused silica glass is known to offer excellent heat and water resistance. It has already been demonstrated that data can be read without degradation even after subjecting the fused silica to an accelerated temperature test of 1,000℃ for 2 hours. This indicates that data archived using fused silica glass can withstand storage of over 300 million years. The use of fused silica is expected to provide new technology for semi-perpetual data storage of valuable data such as historically important legacies and public documents as well personal data that individuals may wish to preserve data for future generations.
