New technology promises 125 Gigabytes of data per square inch

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have claimed that a new technique that uses self-assembling nanoscale elements can soon increase storage capacity of electronic media manifold.

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Ting Xu, faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said,

The density achievable with the technology we've developed could potentially enable the contents of 250 DVDs to fit onto a surface the size of a quarter.

Xu also explained that in this technique, self-assembling molecules on the thin film of block copolymers make an extremely precise pattern. This allowed researchers to achieve defect-free arrays of nanoscopic elements so small that it can hold 10 terabits of data per square inch (thats 125GB/ sq. Inch)

Thomas Russell, director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UMass Amherst, said,

We can generate nearly perfect arrays over macroscopic surfaces where the density is over 15 times higher than anything achieved before, with that order of density, one could get a high-definition picture on a screen the size of a JumboTron.

Via: Berkeley