
What's after electrical charges and electricity in computer storage? Lasers and excitons. Theorists from the John Hopkins University have drafted a theory that uses low-power lasers and crystalline insulators to store data. In the theory, lasers would excite electrons in a crystalline-like lattice in order to record data; the atoms would vibrate at a certain frequency to indicate the type of bit. A side effect of using lasers and insulators is reduced heat output. The heat is reduced because the atoms do not exchanging electrons as current computer components do. The
EE Times has a more detailed write up as well as
WebIndia,
TopNews.in,
Eureka Alert, and
Small Times.
Member since:
2005-07-06
They had "crystals" in SciFi flicks and books forever as data storage and the like. Slowly becoming true... (even if this is just crap, there have been other researchers and talks about crystals and storage)