The carrier 360 terabytes

British researchers from the University of Southampton have demonstrated a new way of recording information in a transparent quartz block. Experts say that their development will store data for millions of years, can be heated up to a thousand degrees Celsius. In this case, to the media about the size of a conventional CD is placed 360 terabytes of information. Details of the work are given on the website of the university.

As the media protrude previously embedded in the quartz crystal nanoparticles spaced five microns apart. For data recording engineers irradiated nanoparticles powerful laser. Radiation leads to the fact that nanoparticles have gained the ability to rotate the plane of polarization passing through them weaker (reader) radiation.
The main advantage of its development scientists call stability: in theory, the structure of a quartz crystal can be stored for a long time, up to several million years. Plastic, of which the ordinary CDs, degraded for decades and it is comparable with a lifetime of magnetic media or the currently used solid-state drives. Even special archival paper in a controlled environment storage can be maintained about a thousand years, playing digital media in the comfort of search and work with the data: scientists believe that museums and archives storage duration will be decisive advantage.