Data that needs to be stored long-term is growing exponentially.
Existing storage technologies have a limited lifetime …
… and regular data migration is needed, …
… resulting in high cost.
In project Silica we design a long-term storage system …
… specifically for the cloud, using quartz glass.
Greater than a thousands years lifetime, low cost, resilient, durable, write-once media.
Data is written inside the glass using a femtosecond pulse laser.
The pulse duration is of the order of 100 femtoseconds, …
… equivalent to 1 one-trillionth of a second.
Unlike surface optical media, the laser is focused inside the glass.
At the focus, the glass is permanently modified creating a voxel.
Each voxel has an orientation, controlled by the laser polarisation.
The voxel strength is controlled by changing the laser power.
Voxels are written in multiple layers, creating 3D arrays of voxels, …
… allowing for a high storage density.
Multi-dimensional data storage is achieved by controlling …
… the X, Y, Z position, orientation, and strength of each voxel.
Once a piece of lass is entirely written, it is archived, …
… and accessed only for reads.
Different technologies are used to write and read the data.
Data is read with a computer-controlled microscope.
The piece of glass is placed in the read head.
Using fast positioning, the track of interest is located.
The read head focuses on the layer of interest, …
… and set of polarization images are recorded.
The images are processed to obtain…
… the orientation (colour) and strength (size) of each voxel.
The read head then focuses on subsequent layers …
… imaging layer by layer …
… and reconstructing the original data.
