VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY,

BELAGAVI – 5900 18

A SEMINAR REPORT ON

“5D OPTICAL DISK DATA STORAGE”

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the award of degree

of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN
INFORMATION SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

Submitted By:
SANJAY SHARMA V [4VV18IS407]

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

D. KHASIM VALI
Associate Professor
Dept of IS&E
VVCE, Mysuru

2020 -2021
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
VIDYAVARDHAKA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
MYSURU-5700 02
 Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering
Gokulam III Stage, Mysuru-5700 02

Department of Information Science and

Engineering

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the seminar report entitled “5D OPTICAL DISK DATA
STORAGE” is a bona fide work carried out by Sanjay Sharma V (4VV18IS407),
student of VIII Semester Information Science and Engineering, Vidyavardhaka College of
Engineering, Mysuru in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of Bachelor of
Engineering in Information Science & Engineering of the Visvesvaraya Technological
University, Belagavi, during the academic year 2020-2021. It is certified that all the
suggestions and corrections indicated for the internal assessment have been incorporated in the
report deposited in the department library. The report has been approved as it satisfies the
requirements in respect of seminar work prescribed for the said degree.

Signature of the Guide Signature of the HOD

(D. Khasim Vali) (Dr. A B Rajendra)

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Seminar would not have been possible without the guidance, assistance and suggestions of
many individuals. I would like to express our deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness to each
and every one who has helped me to make this project a success.

We heartily thank our beloved Principal, Dr. B Sadashive Gowda for his whole hearted support
and for his kind permission to undergo the seminar.

We wish to express our deepest gratitude to Dr. A B Rajendra, Head of Department, Information
Science and Engineering, VVCE, for his constant encouragement and inspiration in taking up
this seminar.

We gracefully thank our seminar guide, D. Khasim Vali, Associate professor, Dept. of
Information Science and Engineering for their encouragement and advice throughout the course
of the seminar work.

In the end, we are anxious to offer our sincere thanks to our family members and friends for their
valuable suggestions and encouragement.

SANJAY SHARMA V
(4VV18IS407)
 ABSTRACT

Securely storing large amounts of information over relatively short timescales of 100 years,
comparable to the span of the human memory, is a challenging problem. Conventional optical
data storage technology used in CDs and DVDs has reached capacities of hundreds of gigabits
per square inch, but its lifetime is limited to a decade. DNA based data storage can hold hundreds
of terabytes per gram, but the durability is limited. The major challenge is the lack of appropriate
combination of storage technology and medium possessing the advantages of both high capacity
and long lifetime. The recording and retrieval of the digital data with a nearly unlimited lifetime
was implemented by femtosecond laser nanostructuring of fused quartz. The storage allows
unprecedented properties including hundreds of terabytes per disc data capacity, thermal stability
up to 1000 °C, and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature opening a new era of eternal
data archiving.

The concept is the bulk storing of data optically in non-photosensitive transparent materials such
as fused quartz, which is renowned for its high chemical stability and resistance. Writing into it
using a femtosecond-laser was first proposed and demonstrated in 1996. The storage media
consists of fused quartz where the spatial dimensions, intensity, polarization, and wavelength is
used to modulate data. By introducing gold or silver nanoparticles embedded in the material,
their plasmonic properties can be exploited.

The format has a novel method of storing data called "5-dimensional". This is more for marketing
purposes since the device has 3 physical dimensions and no exotic higher dimensional properties.
The fractal/holographic nature of its data storage is also purely 3-dimensional.

The 5-dimensional discs [have] tiny patterns printed on 3 layers within the discs. Depending on
the angle they are viewed from, these patterns can look completely different. This may sound
like science fiction, but it's basically a really fancy optical illusion. In this case, the 5 dimensions
inside of the discs are the size and orientation in relation to the 3-dimensional position of the
nanostructures. The concept of being 5-dimensional means that one disc has several different
images depending on the angle that one views it from, and the magnification of the microscope
used to view it. Basically, each disc has multiple layers of micro and macro level images.
 CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Page no

INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................1
1.1 Importance of Optical Data Storage...................................................1
1.2 Breaking the Storage-Capacity limit by Multiplexing.......................3

Chapter 2
ARCHITECTURE.................................................................................................6
2.1 Rewriting and Durability of Structure in Glass.................................6
2.2 Data Recording …………………………………………………….8
2.3 Readout results and optimization…………………………………11

Chapter 3
Lifetime………...…............................................................................................17
3.1 Lifetime of nanostructured glass....................................................17

CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................20

REFERENCES......................................................................................................21
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure name Page no

Figure 1:a) Binary 3D data pattern stored in fused silica by femtosecond laser...3
b) Multiplexed 5D optical memory using gold nanorods……………....3

Figure 2: Secondary electron image of femtosecond laser induced nanogratings.4

Figure 3:a) optical transmission image…………………………………………..5

b) slow axis orientation…………………………………………………5
c) induced phase retardation……………………………………………5
d) false colours the recorded information………………………………5
e) Einstein’s portrait imprinted in amorphous silicon thin-films……….5

Figure 4: Rewriting laser-induced nanogratings………………………………...6

Figure 5: Laser induced birefringence value in fused silica……………………..7

Figure 6: 5D optical storage ultrafast writing setup……………………………...8

Figure 7: The schematic illustration of data storage……………………………10

Figure 8:a) Color-coded slow axis orientation………………………………….11

b) Intensity profile of thelinearly polarized light ……………………..11

Figure 9: 5D optical storage readout……………………………………………12

Figure 10: Retrieved text from 5D optical data…………………………….......13

Figure 11: Retardance dependence on 16 different slow axis orientations…….14

Figure 12:a) Four layers of laser-induced birefringent spots…………………..15

b) Readout the data without and with optimization…………………15

Figure 13: Schematic drawing of fast birefringence measurement system…….16

Figure 14: Arrhenius plot of nanogratings decay rate………………………….18

Figure 15: Schematic illustrations of typical lifetimes of different data

storage approaches……………………………………………………………...19
 5D Optical Disk Data Storage

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Importance of optical data storage

The evolution of information storage during the history of mankind involves four distinct eras:
painted information, carved information, scripted information and digitalized information.1,2 The
modern binary number system was first introduced by Gottfried Leibniz in 1703, who was inspired
by a Chinese binary system called I Ching. The first modern breakthrough of digitization came in
1801 when the Jacquard loom was first demonstrated. The Jacquard loom simplified complex
manufacturing textiles processes by controlling a chain of punched cards in a continuous sequence.
The invention of this device enabled complex operations and data storage through paper punched
cards. The first semiconductor diode in 1906 eventually allowed electronic circuit and data storage
to become a reality.

Through the 20th century, one of the main innovations for data storage came about with the
invention of optical discs (CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays). With high speed rotation drives (around 10,000
rpm), the writing rate of a Blu-ray disc could achieve around 100 MB/s. This development provided
the ability to store large quantities of data in a weightless (around 20 g), small (standard 12 cm
diameter) and high capacity (up to 1 TB) DVD or Blu-ray disc. With the invention of the
laser diode (a gallium arsenide semiconductor diode firstly demonstrated in 1962) made it possible
to compress the whole optical disc reading and writing system in a very compact form. As a result,
the CD, DVD and Blu-ray read/write technology are ubiquitous in everyday life: laptops, video
game consoles, cars, portable CD players, etc.

In the 21st century, the ability to store and access data is growing rapidly with the internet bringing
all forms of information technology to everyone’s fingertips. We cannot deny that this tangibility
of information has made life faster, informative and more enjoyable than ever. However with this
ability, every individual or company that is generating large amounts of data on a daily basis, which
in turn introduces the desperate need of more efficient forms of data storage. The International Data
Corporation investigated that total capacity of data stored is increasing by around 60% each year.3
As a result, more than 39,000 exabytes of data will be generated by 2020.4 This amount of data will
cause a series of problems and one of the main will be power consumption. 1.5% of the total US
electricity consumption in 2010 was given to the data centres in the U.S.2 According to a report by
the Natural Resources Defence Council, the power consumption of all data centres in the U.S. will
reach roughly 140 billion kilowatt-hours per each year by 2020.5 This amount of electricity is
equivalent to that generated by roughly thirteen Heysham 2 nuclear power stations (one of the
biggest stations in UK, net 1240 MWe).

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Most of these data centres are built based on hard-disk drive (HDD), with only a few designed on
optical discs. HDD is the most popular solution for digital data storage according to the International
Data Corporation.2 However, HDD is not an energy efficient option for data archiving; the loading
energy consumption is around 0.04 W/GB.6 In addition, HDD is an unsatisfactory candidate for
long-term storage due to the short lifetime of the hardware and requires transferring data every two
years to avoid any loss. Therefore, the techniques which exhibit high capacity, low energy
consumption and long lifetimes are essential for the future. Recent attempts to develop long-term
and high-capacity data storage and to prove that the data will survive for millions to billions of
years have been promising. However, despite the space eternal memory concepts, the proposed
alternative technologies storing information on DNA, silicon-nitride/tungsten based medium,
microscopically etched/electroformed nickel plates are technologically expensive and slow to be
practical.

The current solution is the optical disc technique, which only holds a small percentage of data
centres usage at present. Due to the fact that data cannot be reached instantaneously, optical disc is
not the best option for major storage. Nevertheless, since energy is mainly consumed during the
initial data writing process, optical discs is more economic in energy usage. The optical disc drive
will stay idle after the data is well written. Hence, the advantages such as low price and reduced
energy consumption makes the optical disc system the ideal system for data archiving and internet
backup currently. It enables the storage of thousands of optical discs and read/write, transfer and
placement of the discs simultaneously. The specific disc, which contains data from any one user,
will be picked up and transferred to the read/write drive before accessing based on user habits. This
kind of optical-disc-based data storage system can lower the cost and spend less energy, meanwhile
ensuring that users can access files from their own terminals instantly.

We believe that optical data storage, well known for its green characteristics, will be the mainstream
technique for data archiving in the near future. The main kind of optical discs employed for data
archiving in big data centres are Blu-ray discs, which are limited to tens of GBs. However, can the
GB-scale Blu-ray disc cope with the explosive demand of data storage? In 2020, tons of Blu-ray
discs will occupy tremendous amounts space (about 34 round trips to the moon with Blu-ray discs).4
Therefore, an optical disc which enables high capacity is essential for our future needs. Currently
optical data storage is based in predominantly planar technology, which exploits the linear light
absorption of the material, thus is constrained to the surface modification. In addition, planar
technology is limited in the number of modification layers, consequently restricting the capacity. In
order to further expand the potential optical data storage capacity, a volumetric approach was
suggested, known as 3D optical memory, where data can be stored in multiple layers making use
of the whole volume of the material

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1.2 Breaking the storage-capacity limit by multiplexing

Securely storing large amounts of information over even relatively short timescales of 100 years,
comparable to the human brain lifetime, is a challenging problem. A general rule of thumb, defined
in particular by the diffusion process, is as storage density increases, the lifetime of said storage
will decrease. For example, vast amounts of data written by individual atoms can only be stored
for 10 ps at room temperature The conventional optical data storage technology used for CDs and
DVDs has reached capacities of hundreds of gigabits per square inch, but its lifetime is limited to
several decades. The major challenge is the lack of appropriate storage technology and medium
possessing the advantages of both high capacity and long lifetime. Unlike CD, DVD and Blu-ray
discs, which need to add the extra layers physically, the three dimensional (3D) optical storage
technique can write potentially thousands of layers (Figure 1 (a)). Latest developments in 3D
optical memory has achieved an approximate capacity of 10 TB in a small spot size of 100 nm by
utilizing a dual beam technique named super-resolution photoinduction-inhibition
nanolithography (SPIN). This technology provides the possibility of breaking the diffraction
barrier and achieving the smallest features at sizes down to 9 nm.

Figure 1. (a) Binary 3D data pattern stored in fused silica by femtosecond laser. (b) Multiplexed
5D optical memory using gold nanorods. The patterns were fabricated using different wavelengths
and polarization states as 4th and 5th dimensions.

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 5D Optical Disk Data Storage

Normally in a single memory cell or voxel, only 1 bit of data can be stored. However, there is the
potential of storing more than one bit in a single voxel by implementing multiplex technology. As
a result, the total storage capacity can be further increased alongside readout speed. This approach
can be applied in materials which exhibit sensitivity to not only the intensity of the light source
used to read but also to other properties of light. The signal can then be read in several independent
channels, thus enabling multiplexing of data. Several parameters like polarization, wavelength,
space, fluorescence have all been deliberated as the additional dimensions for optical data storage.
Various materials have been implemented for multi-dimensional data storage such as silver
clusters embedded in glass and gold (Figure 1 (b)) or silver nanoparticles. The method of data
multiplexing is an alternative to holographic data storage which overcomes the capacity limit
dictated by optical diffraction. Optical recording based on femtosecond laser writing exhibits two
advantages due to its ability in high-precision and high-energy deposition. It was first proposed
and demonstrated in photopolymers, later in the bulk of non-photosensitive glass. More recently
polarization multiplexed writing was demonstrated by using self-assembled nanogratings
produced by ultrafast laser writing in semiconductor thin-films34 or fused quartz. The
nanogratings, featuring 20 nm embedded structures (Figure 2), the smallest ever produced by light.
Despite several attempts to explain the physics of the peculiar self-organization process, the
formation of these nanostructures still remains debatable. On the macroscopic scale, the self-
assembled nanostructure behaves as a uniaxial optical crystal with negative birefringence. The
optical anisotropy, which results from the alignment of the nanogratings, referred to as form
birefringence, is of the same order of magnitude as positive birefringence in crystalline quartz.

Figure 2. Secondary electron image of femtosecond laser induced nanogratings in silica glass with
the schematic diagram of its slow axis angle () and retardance value (R), where nx’, ny’ are
refractive indices corresponding to slow and fast axis, and d is the thickness of induced structure.

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The two independent parameters describing birefringence, the slow axis orientation (4th
dimension) and strength of retardance (5th dimension, defined as a product of the birefringence
and length of structure) (Figure 3), were explored for the optical encoding of information in
addition to three spatial coordinates. The slow axis orientation and the retardance are
independently manipulated by the polarization and intensity of the incident beam. As a result, the
polarization and intensity multiplexing increases the amount of data held per modification spot.
Simultaneously the reading speed is increased since more number of bits can be retrieved by
reading one modification spot compared to conventional data storage where each physical spot
contains only one bit.

Figure 3. Images demonstrating multi-dimensional optical printing. “Small World Map” (a) optical
transmission image of the laser-induced nanogratings with its space-variant (b) slow axis
orientation and (c) induced phase retardation. (d) Images, from left to right, representing in false
colours the recorded information in slow axis and retardance, and decoupled portraits of Maxwell
and Newton. (e) Einstein’s portrait imprinted in amorphous silicon thin-films. Arrows indicate the
polarization states used for extracting the image.

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Chapter 2

ARCHITECTURE

2.1 Rewriting and durability of structures in glass

Besides the benefits of multiplexing, the 5D optical data based on nanogratings can be also erased
and rewritten, which are two important features when considering data storage. The initial
nanogratings can be replaced with new ones whose direction is dependent on the incident rewrite
laser beam. The rewriting process can be clearly observed in Figure 4 (a-d), where the original
spot is rewritten with 3, 30, 300 and 4000 pulses of a beam with a laser polarization rotated by
45°. 200 pulses should be enough to erase the previous induced birefringence signal while not
generating a strong new signal from the rewrite laser pulses (Figure 4. 4 (e)). About 2000 pulses
could completely rewrite the structure, which has the same birefringence signal as the original one.

Figure 4. Rewriting laser-induced nanogratings with (a) 3, (b) 30, (c) 300 and (d) 4000 pulses. The
rewrite polarization is at 45 to the original polarization. (e) Intensity of the birefringence signal
as a function of number of rewrite laser pulses where the input polarization is at 45 to the original
nanogratings (red squares), and at 45 to the replacement nanogratings (blue dots).

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The 5D optical storage technique applied to fused silica is ideal due to fused silica’s high chemical
and thermal stability (Figure 5), making fused silica the ideal medium for long term data storage.
Latest studies have demonstrated a fused silica based long lifetime 3D optical memory that has a
data capacity equivalent to a DVD disc. Additional evaluation results indicate that this optical
memory possesses a lifetime of over 319 million years.

Figure 5. Laser induced birefringence value in fused silica as a function of annealing temperature.
Pulse energy was set to 1.60 J (black dots) and 2.14 J (red triangles). The situation for 5D
optical memory is even superior. Previous studies indicate that the phase retardance only starts to
drop at 800℃, but the difference of the phase retardance generated by two levels of energy remains
almost the same.46 This behaviour is beneficial for the memory application. Even if the
birefringence signal drops after a certain period of time or under some special conditions, the data
will still be readable as long as the difference between each signal level is sufficient.

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2.2 Data recording

Data recording experiments were performed with an Yb:KGW based femtosecond laser system
(Pharos, Light Conversion Ltd.) operating at 1030 nm and delivering 6.3 μJ pulses at 200 kHz
repetition rate and pulse duration tunable from 270 fs to 800 fs. Even though longer pulse duration
can induce higher retardance (80 nm), it also leads to higher stress accumulation and eventual
material cracking. As a result, the pulse duration was set to 280 fs. Three modification layers were
inscribed with a femtosecond laser 130-170 μm below the surface of a fused quartz (SiO2 glass)
sample by a 1.2 NA (×60) water immersion objective.

In the recording procedure, groups of birefringent dots were simultaneously imprinted at the
designated depth (Figure 6). Each group, containing from 1 to 100 dots, was generated with a
liquid crystal based spatial light modulator (SLM) and 4d optical system. The holograms for the
SLM were generated with an adapted weighted Gerchberg-Saxton (GSW) algorithm, which
enabled discretized multi-level intensity control. The discretized multi-level intensity control
enabled data multiplexing via retardance. By using the adapted GSW algorithm, several discrete
levels of intensity could be achieved with a single hologram.51 However, the algorithm controls
only the relative ratio of different intensity levels. As the number of dots varies from one hologram
to another, the absolute intensity of each spot varies. Thus, the corresponding intensity levels
generated by different holograms are different and create fluctuations of the retardance value from
one hologram to another. The problem is resolved by introducing a negative feedback loop into
the algorithm, which redistributes the surplus of energy out of the modification region, fixing each
intensity level generated by all holograms to the certain value. The excess energy is blocked by an
aperture (AP) placed after the half-wave plate matrix (HPM) and does not affect data recording.

Figure 6. 5D optical storage ultrafast writing setup. FSL and FL represent femtosecond laser and
Fourier lens, respectively. SLM and HPM represent spatial light modulator and half-wave plate
matrix. AP and WIO are the aperture and water immersion objective (1.2 NA). Linearly polarized
(white arrows) light with different intensity levels propagate simultaneously through each half-
wave plate segment with different slow axis orientation (black arrows). The colours of the beams
indicate different intensity levels.

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The oriented slow axis is perpendicularly to the polarization of the incident beam. Hence, the
azimuth of the slow axis can be controlled by the polarization of the incident beam, which is
normally accomplished by rotating a half-wave plate. However, the rotation takes a relatively long
time (>10 ms) and considerably reduces writing speed. To avoid this, a laser imprinted half-wave
plate matrix (see HPM in Figure 6, made of 4 segments) was added to the 4d optical system
enabling motion free polarization control. In the focus plane of the first Fourier lens, where the
half-wave plate matrix was placed, several beams with different intensity distributions were
projected by the hologram displayed on the SLM. After passing through the segments of the half-
wave plate matrix, beams with different polarizations were obtained. Subsequently, the plane of
the half-wave plate matrix that contains predefined intensity and polarization distribution is
reimaged directly into the sample by the microscope objective. After synchronizing the movement
of the sample with the refresh rate of the SLM, multiple birefringent dots with four slow axis
orientations and various phase retardance levels can be simultaneously imprinted (Figure 7). The
information was encoded into two states of retardance and four states of slow axis orientation.
Thus, each birefringent dot contained 3 bits of information.

The writing setup, which is illustrated in Figure 6.6, required a particular writing procedure to
achieve data recording. A group of beams with different intensity levels were projected by the first
Fourier lens (FL 1) onto the half-wave plate matrix (HPM), which consisted of four different half-
wave plate segments each with different slow axis orientations as seen in Figure 6.6. The half-
wave plate matrix was fabricated by the ultrafast laser nanostructuring process described in details
elsewhere.45 After propagation through the matrix, four groups of beams with different
polarizations were forme. D By synchronising the movement of the sample with the refresh rate
of the SLM, all polarization states could be recorded into one layer. In 7, the recording process
was depicted inside a 3×3 dot region (yellow square in Figure 7). The whole region could be
completely filled after four laser exposures. Simultaneously, additional dots with information were
printed outside of this 3×3 dot region, thus effectively making the data recording rate much higher.
Following this recording procedure, the motion-free polarization and intensity control for 5D
optical data recording could be accomplished. The spots distribution during one laser exposure
was defined by the polarization states of the spots and orientations of the half-wave plate matrix
following the writing manners. Afterwards, the distributions of spots were handed over to a
computer workstation for producing holograms. Then the produced holograms were automatically
numbered, stored and later used during the laser writing process.

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Figure 7. The schematic illustration of data storage by the femtosecond laser direct writing
technique. The digital data is encoded in spatially variant polarization states of modification spots
and divided into the regions whose size is defined by the number of spots and its density. The half-
wave plate designed of four sub-regions with different orientations of optical axis (red, green,
violet and blue) is fabricated and placed before the objective lens. Changing the computer
generated holograms, the multi-beam patterns are formed and specific sub-regions of the wave
plate are illuminated. Simultaneously controlling the spatial position of the substrate, the target
distribution of spots is written in glass. Black spots indicate the original polarization state of the
beam. Numbers indicate the specific region of the spots matrix.

Additionally, more states of polarization can be exploited for data encoding by fabricating a half-
wave plate matrix with more than four segments (Figure 8). The number of intensity states can
also be increased by changing the hologram generation parameters. Consequently, these added
states, limited by the resolutions of the slow axis orientation (4.7°) and the retardance (5 nm), can
enable more than one byte per modification spot with the current birefringence measurement
system. By recording data with a 1.4 NA objective and shorter wavelength (250-350 nm), a disc
(4.7 inches in diameter and 1.2 mm thickness) with the capacity of 360 TB can be recorded. As a
result, the storage density of the 5D optical memory reaches 439 TB/inch.

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Figure 8. (a) Color-coded slow axis orientation of half-wave plate matrix imprinted in silica glass.
(b) Intensity profile of the linearly polarized light transmitted through the wave plate matrix and
linear polarizer.

2.3 Readout results and optimization

The readout of the recorded information encoded in nanostructured glass was performed with a
quantitative birefringence measurement system (Abrio, CRi Inc.) integrated into an optical
microscope (BX51, Olympus Inc.). Light from a halogen lamp was circularly polarized and
filtered with a bandpass filter at 546 nm. After being transmitted through the layers containing
information, the signal was collected with a 0.6 NA objective and the state of polarization was
characterized with a universal liquid crystal analyzer.

Typical values of the retardance measured in the experiments was 40 nm. Using this system, three
birefringent layers separated by 20 μm in depth could be easily resolved (Figure 9 (a), (b)). The
phase retardance (Figure 9 (c)) and slow axis orientation (Figure 9 (d)) was extracted from the raw
data, then normalized (Figure 9 (e) and (f)) and discretized before the final result was achieved
(Figure 9 (g) and (h)).

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Figure 9. 5D optical storage readout. (a) Birefringence measurement of the data record in three
separate layers. (b) Enlarged 5×5 dots array. Pseudo colour indicated the orientation of slow axis.
(c) Retardance distribution retrieved from the top data layer. (d) Slow axis distribution retrieved
from the top data layer. Enlarged normalized (e) retardance and (f) slow axis matrices with its
corresponding (g), (h) retrieved binary data.

The information was decoded by combining two binary data sets retrieved from the phase
retardance and the slow axis orientation. Out of 11664 bits, which were recorded in three layers,
only 42 bits errors were obtained (Figure 10). Most of the errors were recurring and can be
removed by additional calibration procedures, which accounts for the retardance dependence on
polarization. In the 5D optical storage readout shown in Figure 9 (a)), the distance between two
adjacent spots was 3.7 μm and the distance between each layer was 20 μm. Applying the same
writing method on a disc of conventional CD size with 60 layers, 18 GB capacity can be achieved.
Using the same parameters it was also successfully recorded across three layers a digital copy of
a 310 KB file in PDF format.38 Furthermore, it was noticed that some of the errors are shown
frequently in the retrieved text. The retardance value of spots induced by different polarizations
but same intensity depends on the slow axis orientations resulting in repeated errors in Figure 10.
This polarization dependence effect could be related to the pulse front tilt of ultrashort light pulses.

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Figure 10. Retrieved text from 5D optical data. The letters with errors were bolded.

A series of dots were imprinted in fused silica by 400 laser pulses with 16 different polarizations
and two levels of energy (Figure 11). The energies were set to 50 nJ and 75 nJ. The distribution
of retardance values induced by different polarizations follow a sinusoidal dependence. In order
to optimize the readout process, additional calibration has to be implemented. In this case, the
predefined retardance reference value must be set differently according to the slow axis
orientations.

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Figure 11. Retardance dependence on 16 different slow axis orientations written by (a) 400 pulses
with pulse energies of 50 nJ (Energy I) and 75 nJ (Energy II) at 200 kHz repetition rate.

A paragraph from Encyclopedia Britannica about Sir Isaac Newton was recorded in silica glass.
There were four modification layers, separated by 5 μm. In order to reduce the crosstalk between
layers, generate less stress and increase the optical storage capacity, the dots were arranged
similarly to a body-centred cubic geometry (Figure 12 (a)). When the birefringence measurement
microscope was used to focus on the specific layer, the other layers were out of focus and did not
affect the measurement values. This arrangement scheme increases the capacity four times in
comparison to the one with 20 μm layer separation. There were 1087 Bytes of data being recorded
in four modification layers. The first word in this recorded Encyclopaedia Britannica paragraph is
illustrated indicating how the optimization influenced the final readout results (12 (b)). By using
the readout method modified according to the experimental results, the error rate was reduced to
0.22% (19 out of 8696 bits) compared to 0.36% previously.

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Figure 12. (a) Four layers of laser-induced birefringent spots distributed in a body-centred cubic
lattice. Measured retardance value is normalized to maximum. (b) Readout the data without and
with optimization, where the retardance reference value is set differently according to the slow
axis orientations.

Many commercialized birefringence measurement systems require electrically controlled retarders

and several intensity images to retrieve the birefringence distribution. Therefore, it is not suitable
for memory readout systems where a high sampling rate is essential. To overcome this problem,
the real-time birefringence measurement system proposed by T.Onuma and Y.Otani can be
employed. The core device in the system is a matrix of four linear polarizers as analysers with
their optical axes oriented at 0°, 45°, 90° and 135°. Similar to a Bayer mask used in colour-
sensitive camera with four independent colour filters assembled into one pixel, the matrix operates
as a linear polarizer with four separate orientations. In addition, by applying the technology based
on ultrafast laser nanostructuring, the analysers of tens of micrometres size with different
orientations were fabricated. The half-wave plates oriented at 0°, 22.5°, 45°, 67.5° and a linear
polarizer are equivalent to the four linear polarizers as required. Each polarizer matches each pixel
of the CCD matrix one by one (Figure 13).

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Figure 13. Schematic drawing of fast birefringence measurement system: band-pass filter for 546
nm (BPF), linear polarizer (P), quarter-wave plate (Q), condenser, objective lens, half-wave plates
array, linear polarizer and CCD camera. The colours of the wave plates array indicate different
optical axis orientation.

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Chapter 3

Lifetime

3.1 Lifetime of nanostructured glass

The femtosecond laser induced nanogratings comprise of periodic assembly of nanoplanes with
20 nm thickness separated by about 300 nm. Close investigation reveals that refractive index of
nanoplanes is reduced due to material porosity. The formation of porous regions consisting of
nanovoids filled with oxygen could be explained by the following mechanism: femtosecond
irradiation of silica glass produces self-trapped excitons with a lifetime of several microseconds.
Recombination of self-trapped excitons is accompanied by generation of molecular oxygen due to
the photosynthesis-like reaction,

SiO + X →Si +O

where X denotes an exciton. The nanovoids could collapse with time leading to disappearance of
the form birefringence of the modified region. Previous annealing experiments indicated that such
modification can withstand at least 2 hours of thermal annealing at 1000°C. However the
accelerated aging measurements are required to evaluate the stability of nanogratings at room
temperature and estimate the activation energy of nanovoids collapse. The thermally activated
decay time τ at the certain temperature T can be evaluated by Arrhenius law:

where k – decay rate, Ea – the activation energy, A – the frequency factor, T – the absolute
temperature and kB – the Boltzmann constant. The decay rate was evaluated at several annealing
temperatures in the range from 1173 K to 1373 K, where measurable retardance change could be
observed, by measuring the relative retardance decrease versus the annealing time (Figure 14
inset). The experiment was performed with four different laser writing energies (0.75 – 1.5 μJ).
The variation of the relative retardance decrease for different energies were within 5%. The
birefringent structures (uniform squares 0.5×0.5 mm) used for these measurements were written
with the same laser setup as described above. A relatively large area of the written structures was
chosen to increase the precision and repeatability of retardance change measurements. From the
obtained information, decay times at certain temperatures were evaluated and placed on the
Arrhenius plot. The decay time at lower temperatures was easily extrapolated by a linear fit (Figure
14).

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The best linear fit was obtained with activation energy of 1.81±0.07 eV (thermal energy at room
temperature is about 26 meV) and the frequency factor of 135 Hz. For comparison the activation
energy measured in the erasure of the type I fiber Bragg gratings was 0.79 – 2.04 eV depending
on the sample composition. Assuming the scaling in Figure 14 holds at room temperature (303 K)
the decay time of nanogratings is 3⋅1020 ±1 years, indicating unprecedentedly high stability of
nanostructures imprinted in fused quartz. Even at elevated temperatures of T = 462 K, the
extrapolated decay time is comparable with the age of the Universe – 13.8 billion years. Obviously
extrapolation over such a long lifetime is not absolutely correct due to increasing error. Also it
neglects the temperature variation over long period of time, which cannot be easily evaluated. On
the other hand it is clear that if the temperature does not increase drastically, we would have an
optical data storage with seemingly unlimited lifetime.

Figure 14. Arrhenius plot of nanogratings decay rate. Black symbols indicate measured values;
red symbols are calculated based on fitting results. The grey shaded zone indicates the tolerance
of extrapolated values. At the temperature T = 462 K nanogratings would last for the current life
time of the Universe. (Inset) The decay of the strength of retardance with time at different
annealing temperatures.

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The overall data storage techniques can be separated into three most-common groups:
semiconductor, magnetic and optical. Semiconductor data storage such as flash drives and solid-
state drives (SSD) provide a lifespan around ten years. This is due to the floating-gate transistors
in semiconductor based memory becoming unreliable after a number of program/erase cycles.58
Hence, the lifetime of this memory is mostly dependent on its workload, e.g. SSD memory with
heavy workload (320 GB/day) only has 10% of lifetime as compared to the memory with less of
a workload (32 GB/day).

For magnetization-based memory, such as HDD, needs to transfer data every couple of years in
order to prevent data loss, while the data stored in conventional optical discs such as CD, DVD,
HD DVD and Blu-ray only last tens of years. However, already commercialized Millenniata
optical discs (M-DISCTM) claimed that their discs have an extra-long lifetime of up to a 1000
years. Also, void-based optical memory in fused silica indicate a lifetime of 300 million years.
Other schemes such as holographic memory and phase change memory can only reach the lifetime
of a few decades. Data storage approaches are compared in Figure 15 in order to give a more
intuitive view of storage lifetimes.

Figure 15. Schematic illustrations of typical lifetimes of different data storage approaches.

5D optical memory with its nearly unlimited lifetime is superior to other memory solutions.
Additional guides stored as visual information could be easily used as a key for the further
decoding processes.

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CONCLUSION

The recording of a digital document into a highly stable memory is a vital process towards an
eternal archiving. Although digital data storage techniques are capable of storing huge amounts of
information, the lifetime is limited to decades. Recent progress in memory technologies allowed
to encode the information that is capable of surviving for billions of years.7 The successful
implementation of femtosecond laser nanostructured fused quartz as high-density and, assuming
the scaling of Arrhenius plot holds, long-lifetime storage medium enabled the demonstration of
eternal 5D optical memory. The storage allows hundreds of terabytes per disc data capacity,
thermal stability up to 1000°C and nearly unlimited lifetime at room temperature. We believe that
the eternal 5D optical data storage in glass can be produced on a commercial scale for
organizations, such as national archives, museums, libraries or any private companies. Also, the
projects such as “Time Capsule to Mars”,64 “Moon Mail”,65 or “Lunar Mission One”66 could
benefit from the extreme durability of data imprinted by femtosecond laser in quartz glass, which
is essential for preserving comprehensive information and storing it in space for future generations.
More futuristically, “text messaging to the future” could be now possible. Could the technology
of the future be advanced enough to send the reply?

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