Hitachi Demonstrates Quartz Glass Storage that May Last Millions of Years
Hitachi demonstrated the use of quartz glass technology to store data that is touted to last 100 million years. This is mainly due to the fact that quartz glass is a highly stable and resilient material, which is used to make beakers and other laboratory instruments.
Hitachi demonstrated the use of quartz glass technology to store data that is touted to last 100 million years. This is mainly due to the fact that quartz glass is a highly stable and resilient material, which is used to make beakers and other laboratory instruments.
(Image Source: AFP)
In Hitachi's demonstration, they showed a piece of quartz glass, which measured two centimeters square and just two millimeters (2mm) thick, containing digital information which had been etched onto its surface by precision laser equipment. The binary data is stored in dots etched inside the thin sheet of quartz glass. Hitachi researchers said that the storage material currently has four layers of dots, which can hold 40MB per square inch, and is similar to the density of a typical music CD. They believed adding more layers of storage dots to increase its storage density should not pose any major obstacles.
Although this new storage material is fragile but it is highly durable as it is resistant to high temperatures and water. The company said that they have not decided when quartz glass storage technology will be ready for commercial usage but researchers said would like to target government agencies, museums and religious organizations for their storage needs.
(Source: AFP via Phys.Org)
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