Storing data has been a challenge for decades. From storing information on magnetic tape in the form of cassettes and VHS to storing them on CDs, to USBs and hard drives, there has always been a new way to keep important data that we need for a long time safe. But there is a problem with keeping this data long term. Magnetic tape is easily damaged by heat, humidity, and moisture; CDs can break with a single scratch, and hard drives can be corrupted and take up a lot of space.
The solution? Glass.
Researchers for Microsoft in Cambridge, in the UK have been researching a method of imprinting terabytes of data on a small piece of glass. Project Silica, as it is called, has the goal of reinventing how we store our information.
The process starts with the square, napkin-sized piece of glass. Over the set, a robotic arm with a high-speed femtosecond laser etches a dot pattern so small that it is invisible to the naked eye. The intense power from the laser pulse only affects a single layer of the glass and is extremely precise, creating a tiny divot in the glass called a voxel. Different types of these dots represent 1s and 0s in binary and, therefore, can encode information.
Reading the data requires a high-powered microscope. This allows scientists to view the glass sheets, which are then fed to a program that translates the divots into the data we can understand. Scientists have been pairing this with a machine learning algorithm that can process the microscope image and reproduce the data that is on the glass rapidly.
Currently, each slim plate of glass can hold seven terabytes of data (about two million books of information). It also lasts far longer than our other forms of long-term data storage. The glass is resistant to the kind of decay and damage that can affect CDs and magnetic tapes. The glass plates are also surprisingly durable. Since the data is written on an inside layer, it is resistant to scratches, high temperatures, and damage. Even if a plate broke or got lost, researchers have worked on making the data as redundant as possible, spreading it across several other pieces of glass. For these reasons, researchers predict that these plates could last for millennia.
On top of these advantages, they are easy to store. The plates are thin and can be stacked extremely easily. Richard Black, director of the project, says there “would be eventually [a library like this]…in every data center.” It’s also impossible to overwrite the data when accessing it with the microscope since only another high-power laser could affect the data.
One fascinating potential application of this is the Golden Record 2.0. The Golden Record is a set of two twelve-inch gold-plated discs currently on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, both of which are in interstellar space and are the farthest human-made objects from Earth. With the purpose of sharing the sounds of humanity with any advanced civilization, the record contains everything from Chuck Berry to Beethoven to a greeting from the UN. Researchers have discussed creating a new Golden Record using this technology, allowing us to send far more information into the universe using far less space. In fact, you can upload your own media to contribute to the Golden Record 2.0 project, preserving your own memories on glass.
