A breakthrough in high-capacity storage technology has been achieved with the development of a 3D nanoscale optical disk memory with petabit capacity. The ever-growing demand for data storage has prompted the need for more efficient and cost-effective solutions. Traditional data storage technologies such as semiconductor flash devices and hard disk drives are associated with high energy consumption, operational costs, and short lifespans. In this context, optical data storage (ODS) has emerged as a promising alternative for long-term archival data storage.

However, ODS has historically faced limitations in terms of capacity and areal density. To address these challenges, researchers have successfully increased the capacity of ODS to the petabit level by extending the planar recording architecture to three dimensions with hundreds of layers. This advancement also overcomes the optical diffraction limit barrier of the recorded spots.

The key to this innovation lies in the development of an optical recording medium based on a photoresist film doped with aggregation-induced emission dye. This medium can be optically stimulated by femtosecond laser beams, and the aggregation-induced emission phenomenon serves as the storage mechanism. Additionally, the technology allows for the inhibition of aggregation-induced emission by another deactivating beam, resulting in a recording spot with a super-resolution scale. By stacking nanoscale disks into arrays, the technology enables the achievement of exabit-level storage, which is crucial for big data centers with limited space.

This groundbreaking development holds significant promise for addressing the escalating data storage needs in a more sustainable and efficient manner. The research findings are expected to pave the way for the next generation of high-capacity storage solutions, offering a potential alternative to conventional data storage technologies.