Ultralong-term high-density data storage with atomic defects in SiC

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel ultralong-term, high-density data storage method using atomic defects in silicon carbide, offering a potential solution for long-term data archiving beyond traditional media.

Contribution

It presents a new approach utilizing atomic defects in SiC for energy-efficient, high-density, long-term data storage with optical and electron-beam readout capabilities.

Findings

Achieved areal density comparable to Blu-ray discs.

Demonstrated multi-layer data storage with grayscale encoding.

Showed defect stability suggests multi-generation retention under ambient conditions.

Abstract

There is an urgent need to increase the global data storage capacity, as current approaches lag behind the exponential growth of data generation driven by the Internet, social media and cloud technologies. In addition to increasing storage density, new solutions should provide long-term data archiving that goes far beyond traditional magnetic memory, optical disks and solid-state drives. Here, we propose a concept of energy-efficient, ultralong, high-density data archiving based on optically active atomic-size defects in a radiation resistance material, silicon carbide (SiC). The information is written in these defects by focused ion beams and read using photoluminescence or cathodoluminescence. The temperature-dependent deactivation of these defects suggests a retention time minimum over a few generations under ambient conditions. With near-infrared laser excitation, grayscale encoding and multi-layer data storage, the areal density corresponds to that of Blu-ray discs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the areal density limitation of conventional optical data storage media due to the light diffraction can be overcome by focused electron-beam excitation.