We demonstrate an all-optical data storage and readout technique on a medium that has proved to be stable over centuries-glass containing metallic nanoparticles. Using ultra-short laser pulses to persistently change the shapes of the nanoparticles dependent of the laser polarization, well-defined local dichroism in the focal volume can be produced. The latter could be utilized for multi-bit encoding in spot sizes down to the diffraction limit, where the information can be read out very fast by wavelength-and polarization-sensitive detection of the transmitted light. The storage capacity of the proposed technique is comparable with that of blu-ray discs. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3660740]
AB -We demonstrate an all-optical data storage and readout technique on a medium that has proved to be stable over centuries-glass containing metallic nanoparticles. Using ultra-short laser pulses to persistently change the shapes of the nanoparticles dependent of the laser polarization, well-defined local dichroism in the focal volume can be produced. The latter could be utilized for multi-bit encoding in spot sizes down to the diffraction limit, where the information can be read out very fast by wavelength-and polarization-sensitive detection of the transmitted light. The storage capacity of the proposed technique is comparable with that of blu-ray discs. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3660740]
KW - SILVER NANOPARTICLES KW - INDUCED DEFORMATION KW - GOLD NANORODS KW - FILMS KW - IRRADIATION KW - POLYMER KW - MEMORY U2 - 10.1063/1.3660740 DO - 10.1063/1.3660740 M1 - Article JO - Applied Physics Letters JF - Applied Physics Letters SN - 0003-6951 IS - 20 VL - 99 SP - - ER -