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Pioneer Ultraviolet Laser Promises 500GB Discs
No Fortune writes "Here's an article indicating that Pioneer is developing an ultraviolet laser for data storage. Since the wavelength of ultraviolet lasers is shorter than the wavelength of blue lasers, the beams are finer and they can pack more data into per square inch. This gives a data rate 20 times more than the blue laser Blue-ray disk."
For the benefit of any idiot who thinks parent poster is serious, allow me to point out that your current CD and DVD players use Infra-Red laser diodes, which are also invisible and dangerous. That's why your CD player will often have a warning on the outside.
Dr. Pantyhose is a known Troll. Please don't try to engage him in discussion, that's what he wants. Well, that and karma.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
The limit is defined by the amount of power you can reasonably draw from your system to generate the radiation. Higher frequency means more power is required to generate a 'low-power' beam.
The other limit is finding a suitably reflective material that is cheap enough to be used as media. X rays pass easily through plastics, and they are absorbed by lead. Gamma rays pass through most kinds of material. You need something that reflects well, and doesn't absorb the radiation, that can also be used to store distinct states and be mass produced easily.
This is not a sig.
X-Rays, on the other hand, are much easier. X-Ray lasers have existed for some time (though they tend to be on the bulky side) and lenses that can focus X-Rays are used.
However, with X-Rays, you can build systems that don't just rely on reflection (as per traditional optic media). There is a phenominon called X-Ray Fluorescence, in which an atom, when struck by an X-Ray of the right frequency, emits electrons of a specific energy.
A disk using such a system would need to be layered and etched multiple times, which would make it impossible to write on any kind of domestic scale. However, it would mean that you could have maybe fifty or so "layers" to the disk.
You couldn't use this to read at the atomic level, but you could use it to determine the quantity of a given isotope. This would let you increase the effective density still further.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Something along these lines could help with media dropouts. You can build these files with as little or as much redundancy as makes you feel comfortable. Of course, if Timmy Toddler uses the medium as a frisbee or the dog eats it, you're still SOL.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.