Micro Holographic Data Storage – The coolest technology
“Micro-Holographic Discs” technology, developed by GE Global Research, was recently named the “Coolest Technology of the Year 2009″ by China Business Network Weekly, a leading Business magazine in China. This is the second time that GE has been honored with this award. Last year, the “Digital heart” technology developed by my colleagues in Shanghai team won the same award.
By the time this new technology is ready for market in 2012, a single disc will provide optical disc data storage capacity that is 200 times greater than what DVDs provide today. It will open a new era in data storage.
With the development of the information technology, more and more data will need to be stored or transferred. For example, the high definition video is moving into the homes, which needs high capacity data storage. The holographic storage could meet these requirements.
This has been a six-year project endeavor at GE Global Research. In this project, a special plastic material is used. The size of the micro holographic discs is the same as the traditional CD or DVD. They are all 120mm in diameter. The CD, DVD or the emerging Blu-ray DVD uses the micro cavities at the surface to store the data. The shorter laser wavelength could enable higher data storage capacity. The holographic technology is 3D data storage structure. It uses the entire disc body to store the data. The 3D storage configuration enables the holographic discs store up to 500-1000GB data. This capacity is comparable with the mainstream hard drives.
The table below compares the data capacities of different optical disc technologies (Standard Size: 120mm):
| CD | DVD | Blur-Ray | Micro Holographic | Hard Drive |
| 0.7G | 4.7G | 25G | 500-1000G | 500-1000G |
The compatibility of disc readers is also important. The future readers for holographic discs have very good compatibility. It could not only be used for holographic discs, but also the Blu-Ray DVDs, DVDs or even CDs.
As a researcher of GE China Technology Center, I am proud to work in this great R&D Center with so many talented people, who are putting their ideas become the world coolest technologies.
GE has many such great technologies, but it was not well known to the Chinese people before. In recent years, GE CTC acts as a window of GE to China. From CTC, the Chinese government, medias, companies, universities, etc, see the achievements of GE.
I need to go back to work now, because I also hope to grow my project to the cool technology.
I would like to know more about this tech.