Research Highlights
Research Highlights
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Entire human genome on ‘memory crystal’ that could survive billions of years
Entire human genome on ‘memory crystal’ that could survive billions of years
A 5D memory crystal has been developed, which is capable of storing an entire human genome for billions of years. Unlike traditional storage, which degrades over time, this crystal can withstand extreme heat, radiation, and impact. Beyond preserving human DNA, it could store genetic data from endangered species, potentially aiding in future species revival. Housed in the Memory of Mankind archive in Austria, this breakthrough ensures a lasting record of life on Earth.
News release: https://news.sky.com/story/dna-stored-on-crystal-could-bring-back-humanity-billions-of-years-after-extinction-13217533
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/science/human-genome-crystal-intl-scli/index.html
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1836714179308183739
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1893173876877824309
Backing Up Earth: A Bond-Style Alpine Vault Holding All Human Knowledge
Backing Up Earth: A Bond-Style Alpine Vault Holding All Human Knowledge
Located deep inside a mountain vault near Flums, Switzerland, the futuristic quartz disk holds 60 million microscopic pages of human knowledge. And it's designed to survive a nuclear holocaust.The nano, laser-etched archive holds the entire contents of Wikipedia and the Rosetta language archive. Future additions will also hold 100,000 books and millions of photos and illustrations covering every key aspect of world culture, art, literature, science, sport and history.
News release: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25441847/secret-project-save-world-apocalypse-world-war/
Ultralow-loss geometric phase and polarization shaping by ultrafast laser writing in silica glass
Ultralow-loss geometric phase and polarization shaping by ultrafast laser writing in silica glass
Shaping light: Nanopores offer control with lower losses
The optical property of birefringence can be manipulated in silica glass using an ultrafast laser writing procedure, creating materials in which the phase and polarization of light can be controlled with significantly lower scattering losses than alternative techniques. Birefringence is the effect observed when the refractive index of a material varies depending on the polarization and direction of incident light. M. Sakakura, Y. Lei, L. Wang, Y.-H. Yu, and P. Kazansky at the University of Southampton, UK, used laser light with pulses in the femtosecond range to create elongated nanopores inside silica glass. When the nanopores are aligned perpendicular to incident polarized light they allow subtle control of the light’s properties with transmission as high as 99%. The ability of the materials to “shape” visible, near-infrared and ultra-violet light is expected to be beneficial in a variety of specialist optical applications.
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-020-0250-y#article-info
News release: https://www.optica-opn.org/home/newsroom/2020/february/laser_writing_light_s_new_wave/?feed=News
Laser writing of ultra-low loss birefringence structures inside silica glass.
Geometric phase (GP) optical elements with the low-loss birefringent modification.
Vector beam converter by ultrafast laser writing.
High-Speed Laser Writing Method Could Pack 500 Terabytes of Data into CD-Sized Glass Disc
High-Speed Laser Writing Method Could Pack 500 Terabytes of Data into CD-Sized Glass Disc
Advances make high-density, 5D optical storage practical for long-term data archiving
It is challenging to store the exponentially increasing amount of data in the information age. The multiplexed optical data storage with merits of high data density (hundreds of terabytes/disk), low energy consumption, and long lifetime could open a new era in data storage technology. The recent progress in five-dimensional (5D) optical data storage based on anisotropic nanostructures written by femtosecond (fs) laser pulses in transparent materials reveals its potential for real-world applications, but high writing speed and density remain a major challenge. Here, we propose a method for rapid and energy-efficient writing of highly localized anisotropic nanostructures in silica glass by energy modulated megahertz-rate fs pulses. An isotropic nanovoid is initially generated with pulse energy above the microexplosion threshold and then elongated to an anisotropic nanolamella-like structure via the near-field enhancement effect by lower energy pulses, minimizing the unwanted thermal effects from megahertz-rate fs pulses. The anisotropic nanostructures are exploited for 5D data storage with a rate of 106voxels/s, corresponding to a demonstrated fast information recording of ∼225kB/s and a potentially high-density data storage of ∼500TB/disk.
Paper: https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-8-11-1365&id=462661
News release: https://www.osa.org/en-us/about/newsroom/news_releases/2021/high-speed_laser_writing_method_could_pack_500_ter/
Highlight on Laser System Europe: https://www.lasersystemseurope.com/analysis-opinion/optimising-data-storage-and-beam-shaping-using-ultrafast-laser-writing
Caption: Researchers developed a new fast and energy-efficient laser-writing method for producing nanostructures in silica glass. They used the method to record 6 GB data in a one-inch silica glass sample. The four squares pictured each measure just 8.8 X 8.8 mm. They also used the laser-writing method to write the university logo and mark on the glass.
Credit: Yuhao Lei and Peter G. Kazansky, University of Southampton
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