I-Corps: Folio Photonics: A Multilayer Polymer Substrate for Optical Data Storage

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Transformative concepts for optical data storage (ODS) applications are needed for future needs in multimedia, digital archiving, security, and many others. Commercial data storage technologies are moving to three-dimensional materials, but the known concepts suffer from limitations and high fabrication costs. Herein, a demonstrated storage medium, based on co-extruded multilayer films, overcomes these problems and allows for terabyte-level (TB), bit-by-bit optical data storage. Information in the form of complex patterns and individual bits was recorded in up to 23 superimposed layers by photobleaching a fluorescent dye via one-photon absorption. Results indicate this fabrication process is far simpler than current approaches and enables a read/write system that is nearly Blu-ray compatible, producing high-density multilayer storage media capacities orders of magnitude higher than the state of the art. The explosion of digital data of all kinds in the internet, entertainment, health care, and a plethora of other industries will require an ever increasing capacity of archival storage, data distribution and security. For example, the rapid growth of ?cloud? storage and access will require secure backup. Current manufacturers of optical data storage media have continuously reported their efforts to increase capacity and density to meet future market needs, such as super HD video. In analyzing the reported approaches, the proposed process for manufacturing multilayer polymer data storage substrates has the potential to be transformative, enabling a truly scalable, low-cost approach. In addition to potential applications in digital data storage, such films could be applicable in a number of other technologies requiring written multilayer data for secure storage.