Toward next-generation optical disks

[SkyKnight2]

Summary

An advancement in optical disk writing significantly increases storage capacity while greatly reducing energy consumption and cost.

 

Quotes

Quote

 “Nanoscale optical writing using far-field super-resolution methods provides an unprecedented approach for high-capacity data storage. However, current nanoscale optical writing methods typically rely on methods employing high beam intensity, high energy consumption, and short device life span.”

Quote

“[The researchers] demonstrate a simple and broadly applicable method using lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles to locally reduce graphene oxide flakes through upconversion resonance energy transfer.”

Quote

“Lamon et al. achieved an estimated storage capacity of 700 terabytes on a 12-centimeter optical disk, comparable to a storage capacity of 28,000 single-layer Blu-ray disks.”

My thoughts

Any breakthroughs in technology which increase capacity and decrease cost are welcome with open arms. I think this particular development in optical disk writing could have the greatest impact for platform gamers. As game graphics continually improve and game mechanics/dynamics become increasingly complex, the demand for next generation optics with the capacity to store these gigantic game files greatly rises. The industry has been shifting to allow players to download these files over internet connection as opposed to buying a physical game disk, but downloads of these games can take hours and eat up many gigabytes of precious local storage. Even game disks often only contain basics of the game and still require hours-long downloads before playing. This nanoscale optical writing could introduce physical game disks that are able to hold entire AAA games thus saving valuable time and storage.

 

Sources

Lamon, S., Wu, Y., Zhang, Q., Liu, X., Gu, M., 2021. Nanoscale optical writing through upconversion resonance energy transfer. Science Advances 7, eabe2209.. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe2209

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/9/eabe2209.full

[AbydosOne]

1 minute ago, SkyKnight2 said:

“[The researchers] demonstrate a simple and broadly applicable method using lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles to locally reduce graphene oxide flakes through upconversion resonance energy transfer.”

That is... a sentence... even my EE background is having trouble parsing all that at once...

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

That is... a sentence... even my EE background is having trouble parsing all that at once...

I think we just gotta take the broadly applicable part of it as good and just nod to the rest of it :p.

[WhitetailAni]

It sounds cool and all, but optical discs and drives died in 2013 or so...

I still use them, but I know it's a dead technology.

[SkyKnight2]

@AbydosOne Yes, I don't pretend to understand how it works but the resultant disk is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind going back to physical game disks. I know they take up real-world space (as in boxes on a shelf). I'd much rather not have to buy more hard drives every other year because of the increasing size of COD games. I mean COD Warzone takes up a max capacity of 170.9 GB and the PS5 has an internal hard drive of 1TB. Also external hard drives can be a pain.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just like HDD, tape and floppies, am I right? xD

HDDs are not dead. They're still quite useful for mass storage, and you can get 16TB HDDs for 1/4 of the cost of a 16TB SSD.

Tape, like cassette tapes?
Dead and gone.

Floppies?
Dead and gone, except in our house.

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

HDDs are not dead. They're still quite useful for mass storage, and you can get 16TB HDDs for 1/4 of the cost of a 16TB SSD.

Tape, like cassette tapes?
Dead and gone.

Floppies?
Dead and gone, except in our house.

Tape is alive and well in mass archival in gov't (source: I work for the gov't)

Optical media, fantastic for long term storage in a small footprint.

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

It sounds cool and all, but optical discs and drives died in 2013 or so...

I still use them, but I know it's a dead technology.

It depends on how well they age. If they are like tape then well hell yeah great cold storage if not then it's gonna be a bit of a niche product.

[Doobeedoo]

Not sure disks would return in the mainstream ever again though. Could see it for special uses and such, but yeah.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

Tape is alive and well in mass archival in gov't (source: I work for the gov't)

Optical media, fantastic for long term storage in a small footprint.

Tape > everything else for long term cold storage. I do wonder how well these disks hold up compared to their counterparts (dvd,cd) which basically started failing after 10-15 years.

[Radium_Angel]

15 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

That is... a sentence... even my EE background is having trouble parsing all that at once...

"It's English Jim, but not as we know it." - 'Bones' McCoy

 

"Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?" - Chris Tucker

[StDragon]

Problem is shelf life due to bit-rot. Here in Houston where the humidity is high, It's not uncommon to see CDRs degrade as the film oxidizes and flakes off. It's a lot like what happens to a mirror when it undergoes desilvering over the years.

 

As I understand it, M-Disk format is the way to go for long-term archival followed by storing the media in a sealed container displaced with 100% nitrogen (inert gas)

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

Tape > everything else for long term cold storage. I do wonder how well these disks hold up compared to their counterparts (dvd,cd) which basically started failing after 10-15 years.

I suspect it will depend on how it was stored. I have a number of DVDs burned 20 years ago that are just fine. Hell, I've pulled data off 27 year old floppy drives, that were stored in a damp basement for years, without issue.

 

Media is more resilient than we give it credit for. 

[jaslion]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

I suspect it will depend on how it was stored. I have a number of DVDs burned 20 years ago that are just fine. Hell, I've pulled data off 27 year old floppy drives, that were stored in a damp basement for years, without issue.

 

Media is more resilient than we give it credit for. 

Depends on quality too. I have some decade old dvds I burned and all the cheap disk have failed by now but the sony dvd r and some expensive pink ones are going strong still. Same for burned cds I have too. But there even my nice verbatim disks are going out good thing I backed em all up years ago. Floppies are like indestructable for some reason. My windows 3.1 install disks I used for a companies ancient cnc lasted 8 years of every 3month reinstall and still are good to go

[Doobeedoo]

5 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

With that storage density? Probably cheaper than a SD cartridge. Problem is random access, which is garbage for all spinning storage.

Who knows how other storage mediums will advance in the meantime, to even add this would cost insanely over the top too. Yeah random access too.

[Kilrah]

39 minutes ago, SkyKnight2 said:

Even game disks often only contain basics of the game and still require hours-long downloads before playing. This nanoscale optical writing could introduce physical game disks that are able to hold entire AAA games thus saving valuable time and storage.

That's not gonna happen, simply because the model has shifted to pushing content in waves. After 6 months the entirety of your optical disc would be outdated and a newer version of all of it would be redownloaded like now...

[Spindel]

I stopped reading at graphene. 
 

This menas this tech will be right around the corner for the next 20 years. 

[Bombastinator]

31 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

It sounds cool and all, but optical discs and drives died in 2013 or so...

I still use them, but I know it's a dead technology.

It’s a dead technology because optical disks got crushed by price reduction and capacity increases of usb sticks. When optical came out the benefit was they stored huge amounts of data at low prices.  They were slow to access and very slow to store data on, but the trade off was worth it.  A person could completely back up an entire hard drive on just a few disks.  A usb stick can store more data at higher speed for less money so they totally beat out optical disks.  For optical to make a comeback to where it was, that capacity increase would have to be massive.

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

It’s a dead technology because optical disks got crushed by price reduction and capacity increases of usb sticks. When optical came out the benefit was they stored huge amounts of data at low prices.  They were slow to access and very slow to store data on, but the trade off was worth it.  A person could completely back up an entire hard drive on just a few disks.  A usb stick can store more data at higher speed for less money so they totally beat out optical disks.  For optical to make a comeback to where it was, that capacity increase would have to be massive.

I know that.

I like the idea of this, I'm just a bit confused why now.

[AbydosOne]

6 minutes ago, James Evens said:

EE is the wrong degree for this.

Physics or chemistry is the right one.

Thanks for telling me, it's not like I didn't take three semesters of physics, a semester of material science, and a semester of chemistry along the way... 

[SkyKnight2]

The researchers do state that the written features of the disk have prolonged stability due to  "selecting thermodynamically stable graphene oxide and embedding the nanocomposite into a protective matrix." They don't demonstrate how long the stability lasts and during which conditions. @StDragon mentioned humidity being a factor. We need more data to show the limitations (if any) of this stability as well as length of time.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I know that.

I like the idea of this, I'm just a bit confused why now.

I think people just work on improving stuff and things happen.  Sometimes it’s enough sometimes it isn’t.  Tape has managed to remain useful as a backup device because they keep on managing to expand its capacity.  Attempting to do this with hard drives though with shingling was less successful.   Perhaps it is enough to make optical relevant again.  I don’t know.   Not enough information.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

That is... a sentence... even my EE background is having trouble parsing all that at once...

Basically it's bunch of magic pixies that carve data into optical discs using really tiny pocket knives.

[bcredeur97]

I'm actually a fan of optical media as if it's stored properly, it's even more resilient than tape.

Read/Write is slower though and I think they top out at 100GB? For a BDXL archival disk. which is kinda small if im honest.

Cheaper than tape drives and tape though.

[samcool55]

If pricing is alright, this might become the alternative for tape backups for small businesses or home users with a lot of data.