How Optical Discs Could Make A Comeback Thanks To This Breakthrough
How-To Geek, Sunday, July 21st, 2024
In the 90s, every sci-fi movie that featured data storage invariably had some far-future version of a CD in it. It may have been in a caddy, or have a weird holographic sheen, but everyone thought optical discs were the future. Today, that doesn't seem likely, but continuing research into optical storage might prove those movies right after all.
What Is "Optical" Storage?
It pains me to write this, but there are probably some of you reading this who only have vague contact with optical media. While you can still readily get Blu-ray, DVD, and CD media, many people have grown up in a digital download and streaming age, with little need to ever touch a disc. Which means, there's a good chance you don't actually know how it works. Everyone else can just skip to the next section, but here goes:
Optical media use light to store and read data. An optical disc has microscopic pits and lands that either reflect or diffuse light. When you shine a laser beam at these discs and measure the light that comes back, you get a series of ones and zeros. All you need to store digital data. While optical discs are "pressed" in a factory, home-made discs use a laser to create these pits and lands by altering the chemistry in a special dye layer within the disc.