{"id":1162508,"date":"2026-02-18T08:49:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&#038;p=1162508"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:31:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:31:49","slug":"laser-writing-in-glass-for-dense-fast-and-efficient-archival-data-storage","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/publication\/laser-writing-in-glass-for-dense-fast-and-efficient-archival-data-storage\/","title":{"rendered":"Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Long-term preservation of digital information is vital for safeguarding the knowledge of humanity for future generations. Existing archival storage solutions, such as magnetic tapes and hard disk drives, suffer from limited media lifespans that render them unsuitable for long-term data retention<span style=\"font-size: 12px\">.<\/span>\u00a0Optical storage approaches, particularly laser writing in robust media such as glass, have emerged as promising alternatives with the potential for increased longevity. Previous work\u00a0has predominantly optimized individual aspects such as data density but has not demonstrated an end-to-end system, including writing, storing and retrieving information. Here we report an optical archival storage technology based on femtosecond laser direct writing in glass that addresses the practical demands of archival storage, which we call Silica. We achieve a data density of 1.59\u2009Gbit\u2009mm<sup>\u22123<\/sup>\u00a0in 301 layers for a capacity of 4.8\u2009TB in a 120\u00a0mm square, 2\u2009mm thick piece of glass. The demonstrated write regimes enable a write throughput of 25.6 Mbit\u2009s<sup>\u22121<\/sup>\u00a0per beam, limited by the laser repetition rate, with an energy efficiency of 10.1\u2009nJ per bit. Moreover, we extend the storage ability to borosilicate glass, offering a lower-cost medium and reduced writing and reading complexity. Accelerated ageing tests on written voxels in borosilicate suggest data lifetimes exceeding 10,000\u2009years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long-term preservation of digital information is vital for safeguarding the knowledge of humanity for future generations. Existing archival storage solutions, such as magnetic tapes and hard disk drives, suffer from limited media lifespans that render them unsuitable for long-term data retention.\u00a0Optical storage approaches, particularly laser writing in robust media such as glass, have emerged as 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