The growing demand for high-density, long-term data storage has intensified interest in three-dimensional optical storage based on laser-written structures in glass. We evaluate a diverse set of commercial glasses to determine how intrinsic material properties influence the formation of multibit phase voxels. By analyzing voxel quality and write efficiency, we develop a materials-screening framework that links storage performance to measurable glass properties. Thermal diffusivity emerges as the property most strongly correlated with quality \\((\ud835\udc5f = 0.78)\\). The resulting performance landscape identifies a Pareto front in which Schott K10 exhibits the highest write efficiency (\\(0.115\\;{\\rm bit}\\,{\\rm nJ}^{-1}\\,{\\rm voxel}^{-1}\\)), while Borofloat 33 provides the highest quality (\\(1.76\\;{\\rm bit}\\,{\\rm voxel}^{-1}\\)). Overall, this work demonstrates a generalizable methodology for selecting glasses for advanced laser-processing applications, highlighting thermal diffusivity as a key factor for achieving precise photonic structuring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The growing demand for high-density, long-term data storage has intensified interest in three-dimensional optical storage based on laser-written structures in glass. We evaluate a diverse set of commercial glasses to determine how intrinsic material properties influence the formation of multibit phase voxels. 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