Advancing the Optical Data Storage Systems using Fluorescent Materials

Over past decade the total amount of data produced per year increased from 0.9 zettabytes (ZB) to 20 ZB. It has been predicted that this will rise to a staggering 175 ZB by 2025 because of massive amount of data being generated by internet of things, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and social media. Currently, there is a huge demand for replacing data storage materials involving magnetic materials to be replaced by optical data storage, which provide lower energy consumption, higher capacity, along with longer lifetimes. It is not possible to store large amounts of data generated onto traditional optical and electronic data storage media (tapes and USB flash drives). Polymeric optical data storage (ODS) medium has been combined with the microscopy technologies to provide advantages in cost, performance, and durability. However, there has been a fundamental limitation imposed by far-field diffraction physics that creates a restriction on the current state-of-the-art in ODS systems. There are also limitations imposed by the amount of laser power required to write in such a media. Here, I present a couple of projects that will change the face of the ODS systems by solving these problems using techniques from single molecule microscopy and nanoparticles.