Chinese scientists have developed a super-density data storage technology, which could be used to produce a new compact disk (CD) with a storage capacity one million times more than existing CDs.
A research team headed by Gao Hongjun, a research fellow with the Institute of Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has reduced the size of a data storage point to about one nanometer, or one millionth of a centimeter, and the stored data is erasable.
The storage capacity of a CD using the technology would be surprising, said Gao.
"It would be equivalent to that of one million existing CDs combined, or all the data in the Capitol Hill Library in the Untied States," said the researcher.
But it would take about 15 years before the technology could be commercialized.
A paper on the achievement has been published recently by the Physics Review Letter in the United States, and the progress was also reported by Science News.
An expert panel authorized by the State National Sciences Fund Committee described the achievement as on a par with the world's most advanced level.
Experts are scheduled to discuss the technology Friday at the institute in Beijing.
(People's Daily 12/22/2000)
