Nanolasers the Future of Data Storage?

By Greg McNevin

December 13, 2007: Researchers in the US have reportedly hit upon a new method of data storage that uses nanolasers to hit densities upwards of 10 terabits per square inch.

According to nanotechweb.org and published in Applied Physics Letters, the nanolaser, developed by researchers from the University of California, can focus light with a power of over 200?nW into an area 35?nm across, with the potential of the technology being scaled down to 10?nm.

With the help of the team’s specially designed nanolaser, the technique uses aligned beams of light and magnetic fields to toggle the magnetisation of a nanoscale bit, and could prove to be the breakthrough the industry has been looking for as longitudinal magnetic recording, the traditional method of data storage, approaches the density limit data can be stored at before it becomes unstable.

“This experiment could have a great impact on the magnetic data storage industry and especially enable so-called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) – one of the most promising data storage technologies of the future,” team leader Sakhrat Khizroev told nanotechweb.org.

Provided collaboration with optical companies goes well, Khizroev believes that the technology could be on the market in as little as two years, and as the method also potentially enables protein-based memory recording to be developed.

Of course there are significant challenges to be overcome in the mean time, the most imposing of which is getting the cost of a disk drive down to US$100 when it requires a nanolaser to be build in.

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