New research from the University of Oxford shows that scientists have created an ultra-fast memory chip that uses light to store information, as CDs and DVDs do.
The research, conducted by Oxford’s Harish Bhaskaran and Wolfram Pernice of the University of Münster, was published in the scientific journal Nature Photonics.
The researchers developed a new system to store information on a chips made from a material called GST—the same stuff that many re-writable disks are made of—using a combination of high- and low-powered laser pulses.
This isn’t the first time that scientists have built a light-based chip like this—IBM built one in 2012—but this is the first time one has been created that doesn’t need a constant stream of light (or power) to work.
CDs and DVDs have been able to read and write information using light of decades, but the spinning discs can only be written or read at a time. The researchers’ new system allows GST to function in multiple states at the same time.
If scientists are able to develop this chip further, and pair it with a processor that also uses light, as also connect all the parts together with something like fiber optic cables, the computers of tomorrow could be exponentially faster—storing, writing and computing information close to the speed of light.