M+E Daily
GE Makes Holographic Storage Breakthrough
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GE Global Research has developed a micro-holographic storage material that can support data recording at the same speed as Blu-ray discs — a development that further advances the next-generation storage technology toward commercialization, according to the company.
The development follows GE’s April 2009 demonstration that the micro-holographic material could enable a standard DVD-size disc to carry a 500 GB storage capacity. At that time, GE eyed Hollywood home entertainment as one of the technology’s ultimate commercial applications, along with corporate archival storage (see 4/27/09 story from The New York Times).
GE still envisions those same applications for holographic storage today, notwithstanding the rise of streaming video and cloud computing services.
“With a speed to match Blu-ray’s, discs made from GE’s advanced micro-holographic materials are an attractive solution for both archival and consumer entertainment systems,” says Peter Lorraine, manager of GE Global Research’s Applied Optics Lab, in a statement.
Lorraine adds that the hardware and formats for prerecorded micro-holographic discs could be so similar to current optical storage technologies that future micro-holographic players would be able to read CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs as well.
GE’s research and licensing teams plan to sample micro-holographic media “in the months ahead” to companies interested in licensing the technology.
