Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage

Long-term preservation of digital information is vital for safeguarding the knowledge of humanity for future generations. Existing archival storage solutions, such as magnetic tapes and hard disk drives, suffer from limited media lifespans that render them unsuitable for long-term data retention<sup>1-3</sup>. Optical storage approaches, particularly laser writing in robust media such as glass, have emerged as promising alternatives with the potential for increased longevity. Previous work<sup>4-16</sup> has predominantly optimized individual aspects such as data density but has not demonstrated an end-to-end system, including writing, storing and retrieving information. Here we report an optical archival storage technology based on femtosecond laser direct writing in glass that addresses the practical demands of archival storage, which we call Silica. We achieve a data density of 1.59 Gbit mm<sup>-3</sup> in 301 layers for a capacity of 4.8 TB in a 120 mm square, 2 mm thick piece of glass. The demonstrated write regimes enable a write throughput of 25.6 Mbit s<sup>-1</sup> per beam, limited by the laser repetition rate, with an energy efficiency of 10.1 nJ per bit. Moreover, we extend the storage ability to borosilicate glass, offering a lower-cost medium and reduced writing and reading complexity. Accelerated ageing tests on written voxels in borosilicate suggest data lifetimes exceeding 10,000 years.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature
Published
2026-02-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-10042-w
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Laser Material Processing Techniques
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
167.10
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article

Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage

Sebastian Nowozin, Daniel Cletheroe, Ariel Gomez Diaz, Takashi Lawson et al.
4 citations
Nature
Laser Material Processing Techniques
167.10
article

Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage

Sebastian Nowozin, Daniel Cletheroe, Ariel Gomez Diaz, Takashi Lawson, Fanglin Liu, Phil Wainman, Richard Black, Hiske Overweg, Govert Verkes, Stefan Winzeck, Bridgette Cooper, Rokas Drevinskas, Masaaki Sakakura, Christos Gkantsidis, Marco Caballero, Burcu Canakci, Antony Rowstron, Ioan Stefanovici, Sergey Legtchenko, Pablo Wilke Berenguer, Youssef Assaf, Tim Deegan, Nina Schreiner, Bruno Magalhaes, James P. Allison, Adam Smith, Patrick Anderson, Andromachi Chatzieleftheriou, Valentin Kapitány, James Clegg, Erika Aranas, Russell Joyce, Freddie Hong, Teodora Ilieva, Charles Whittaker, Oliver Snowdon, Istvan Haller, David Lara, Thomas Winkler, David Sweeney, Mint Kunkel, Zhonghe Feng, Austin Donnelly, Hugh Williams, Xiaoqi Liu, John Antony Chattaway
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Long-term preservation of digital information is vital for safeguarding the knowledge of humanity for future generations. Existing archival storage solutions, such as magnetic tapes and hard disk drives, suffer from limited media lifespans that render them unsuitable for long-term data retention<sup>1-3</sup>. Optical storage approaches, particularly laser writing in robust media such as glass, have emerged as promising alternatives with the potential for increased longevity. Previous work<sup>4-16</sup> has predominantly optimized individual aspects such as data density but has not demonstrated an end-to-end system, including writing, storing and retrieving information. Here we report an optical archival storage technology based on femtosecond laser direct writing in glass that addresses the practical demands of archival storage, which we call Silica. We achieve a data density of 1.59 Gbit mm<sup>-3</sup> in 301 layers for a capacity of 4.8 TB in a 120 mm square, 2 mm thick piece of glass. The demonstrated write regimes enable a write throughput of 25.6 Mbit s<sup>-1</sup> per beam, limited by the laser repetition rate, with an energy efficiency of 10.1 nJ per bit. Moreover, we extend the storage ability to borosilicate glass, offering a lower-cost medium and reduced writing and reading complexity. Accelerated ageing tests on written voxels in borosilicate suggest data lifetimes exceeding 10,000 years.

NatureVol. 650(8102)
Microsoft Research (United Kingdom) (GB)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Laser Material Processing Techniques
167.10
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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