Revolutionizing optical data storage: high-speed, long-term solution with physically laser ablated matrices on ceramic-on-glass sheets (Invited Paper)

Data storage is a commodity in the modern-day digital era, which is often overlooked when advances in other fields as AI are headlined. It is forecast, that the demand of storage will surpass the supply, yet there is no solution available to close this gap. Our research aims to revolutionize optical data storage by employing inert data carriers made of thin glass and ceramic coatings, combined with femtosecond (fs) laser technology. This approach offers a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and low-maintenance long-term data storage solution on a Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) medium. We utilize laser ablation of thin films with ultrashort pulses, enhancing the write/read process through massive parallelization enabled by beam shaping and a Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MOEMS) device, alongside GigE camera technology. Data is stored as physical matrices on ceramic-on-glass sheets and retrieved via an image processing chain subsequent to high-speed microscopy. Storage and retrieval were successfully demonstrated in a working prototype, where this technology has already shown significant potential to achieve high writing and reading speeds in the gigabytes per second (GB/s) range. Furthermore, initial media lifetime estimates are promising, reinforcing the viability and durability of this innovative solution.