Eye Current

The Ipod Nano Is Not So Nano Afterall..

Nanolasers are paving the way for higher storage capacity where magnetism alone can no longer travel.

A research team led by Sakhrat Khizroev, an associate professor of engineering, is exploring the use of nanolasers to further miniaturize our hard-drives while supplying over 50 times the data storage that we are able to achieve today with magnetic storage. The team talks of storing 10 terabits in a one-half-inch-square footprint with nanolasers they’ve developed, as they can focus light as small as 30 nanometers and provide 250 nanowatts of power. Keep in mind that nanometers and nanowatts are on a molecular scale, meaning that ideas of even smaller drives with less storage capacity than 10 terabits are soon to be attainable.

Researchers have found out that by using a combination of magnetism and light they are able to contain bits of data on smaller areas on the disk. This is fortunate because lately many have begun to realize that the old form of magnetic storage is beginning to reach the end of the road for miniaturization. The team has stated that their next goal is to improve the nanolaser to generate light beams as small as 5 nanometers, the team suspects this can be achieved by refining the gallium ion beams used in fabrication.

Khizroev has stated that there will be numerous things to consider when trying to produce “tiny disk drives” for consumers, such as integrating the nanolaser with a recording head and lubricating tiny parts. However, he insists that the 10 terabit drive is a near-term innovation and is expecting a consumer version in as little as two years.

This development just gives a little insight as to how far we will advance in another 10 years. In 1998 we saw IBM’s Microdrive which was able to store a whopping 350MB on a 1-inch platter. Fast forward to present time and realize that we are now talking of storing 10 terabits on a similarly sized drive. Surely when we see advancements such as this in one aspect of the computer and electronic field we know that there will be 10 more just like it, not only in storage but in computing speed for example. Over the past 7 years we have seen great improvements to our processing speed to where we now have dual quad-core processors as a standard in most new computers. Not much thought is given to the fact that we are making HD a standard in televisions and gaming consoles. As stated earlier, all of the technology that has become available in the last 10 years is just a small peephole in an ever-thinning wall that separates man from machine.

posted by James B. @ 9:07 AM