5D memory crystals feature on Channel 4 news

The work of Professor Peter Kazansky at the Optoelectronics Research Centre on 5D optical storage technology has featured on Channel 4 news.

Our 5D memory crystal, containing the Foundation Trilogy of science fiction books written by Isaac Asimov, recently launched into orbit around the sun aboard the Falcon Heavy spacecraft.

Famously aboard the spacecraft is a Tesla Roadster, owned by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, but joining the bright red sports car on its journey around our solar system is the Arch Library,(pronounced Ark) – known as the Solar Library. Archs are the vision of the Arch Mission Foundation which wants to permanently preserve and disseminate human knowledge as part of an ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’ across time and space for the benefit of future generations. Over the last few years, scientists at the ORC have made a major step forward in the development of digital data storage that is capable of surviving for billions of years. Using nanostructured glass, they have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing.

The storage allows unprecedented properties in terms of data data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature opening a new era of ‘eternal’ data archiving. The technology was first experimentally demonstrated in 2013 when a 300 kB digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D.

Watch the piece in full on YouTube here.