Features - Storage Innovations:

MINING THE MOLECULE: DATA STORAGE ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL

As the data storage community moves into increasingly esoteric modes of storage, such as holographic or fluid based storage devices, a research team at Oklahoma University has taken storage one step further. In an article published in the October 15th issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics, researchers outlined the process by which they succesfully read and reproduced a 32-by-32-pixel (1,024 bits) digital image that had been imprinted on a liquid crystal molecule. This is the largest data set yet to be written onto and from a molecule in the way. Like many other cutting edge storage methods, there is so far no immediate practical application for this new technology. However, the possibilities that may arise from this exciting find are myriad.

The key to storing data within a molecule is in the spin of the atoms off which it is comprised. If scientists can find a way to effectively control the spin state of each atom over an extended period of time, then the manipulation of the spin states could offer a means of storing binary data.

At Oklahoma University, researchers used a molecule with only 19 hydrogen atoms. However, the number of variations offered by even this simple molecule is relatively vast, considering the number of different arrangements that are possible. As more atoms can be controlled, the storage potential is dramatically increased.

The Oklahoma researchers may have taken an important step toward a molecular storage system by discovering a way to enhance data encoding compared with other techniques employed to date. In their experiment, the researchers were able to use radio waves to alter the spin states of the atoms in the test molecule and lock them into a readable pattern for a limited period of time.

The technique involved placing the test material in a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and subjecting it to two consecutive radio wave pulses. The researchers credited the second pulse with creating a readable frequency with a high enough resolution to capture and reproduce the 1,024 bit test pattern.

Major hurdles remain, however, before molecules can be used as storage media--including the duration of the data imprint. The Oklahoma team, for example, was able to control the atoms' spin states for only about one-tenth of a second.

Fung added that the experiment involved large numbers of molecules encoded with identical information and decoded in parallel in order to compensate for the weakness of the signal.