Software utilities

Professor Min Gu and his team at Centre for Micro-Photonics of University of Swinburne recently announced a research project to insert 200.000 DVD on the sam physical support. They claim that while a DVD is 1.2 mm thick, less then a micron is used to store data, so more then 99,9 % is wasted. They managed to use 52 layers on the same DVD, but they think they can get to 200 layers, maybe 300, placing a whole petabyte on the same disk!! Two main research issue are being investigated:

1. Spectral aspects: different particles on the same layer can be read/written using different wave lenght ( = colors of light beam)
2. Polarization: Using two light beam with 90° polarization difference the same layer can contain double data

A deal with Samsung has already been signed, granting the university a research funding of 1 million dollar.