In a recent experiment, researchers in the Netherlands have used ultra-rapid polarized laser pulses to write data to a magnetic hard drive at speeds 100 times faster than conventional methods, according to an article at ScienceNOW.

Researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands have succeeded where others have failed, by making their disk from a magnetic alloy of gadolinium, iron, and cobalt. The technique involves utilizing the heat and angular momentum of laser light photons to physically interact with the hard drive. The heat makes changing polarity--thereby storing data--easier. And the polarity of the pulse determines whether a 1 or a 0 is written to the drive. The process allowed researchers to record data to a drive at intervals of 40 femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second, according to a paper accepted for publication by Physical Review Letters.

The major stumbling block keeping this technology from making its way into mainstream computers is the actual footprint of the laser's pulse on the disk. At roughly five microns, it's significantly larger than the data footprint left by current methods. According to the paper's co-author, physics doctoral candidate Daniel Stanciu, the team is working to get the size down to a much more manageable ten nanometers. He expects a working prototype within the next decade.

The technology may be years away from mainstream PCs, but I think it's a promising advancement for an industry that will increasingly be in the business of streaming high-definition content. As the quality and quantity of media in the data-stream increases, internet bandwidth isn't going to be the only technological issue. Researchers in Tokyo, using the high-speed Internet2 network, recently set a network speed record equivalent to transferring an HD movie across the world in 30 seconds. And they're already at work on a new network capable of transmitting data at ten times that speed. Clearly, storage technology speed needs to improve to keep pace with the rapidly increasing rate of data traffic.

Post by Matt Safford