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Researchers have demonstrated a simple new way to focus laser beams to a much tighter spot than is possible with conventional lenses and mirrors, making it possible to store up to 3T (terabytes) of data on a CD-sized optical disk.

Applied Physics Letters 89: 093120 details the research results of integrating a resonant optical antenna right on a laser (which would make it relatively easy and economical to do commercially.)

Spot sizes of 20 nanometers have already been achieved.

Just by way of comparison, the new high-definition DVDs including Blue-Ray only store about 25G per side with their much larger dot size.

Reading between the lines (so to speak) since I didn’t pay to see the whole article, the new approach appears to use two tiny antennas and thus probably works on an interference pattern basis but that doesn’t really matter unless you are designing lasers, the point is that it appears to work and be commercially viable even for relatively inexpensive devices like today's CD-R and DVD-R drives.

Achieving cheap terabyte storage capacity would probably trigger as big a technology revolution as the original CD-ROM did.

TimC and Steve (and others) you can start salivating now

you had me at 3T

Yep that's about when I started doing an impersonation of Homer Simpson

the one that goes whoop whoop whoop while doing that twirly thing on the ground? LOL

Seriously though... cd, dvds and any other optical platform is on its way out the door. The onset of fast internet, huge hardrives and DVRs, people won't be buying movies/music on Disk anymore, they will be downloading them (legally) or paying for VOD. Sony's blueray and the HD-DVD are technologies that will only be a novelty, especially when 50GB disks will cost you big bucks, compared to the low price of fast hard drives.

Interesting Tim.... thought you would have had a different take on the article... 3Tb on exisiting CD/DVD type media.... I find that pretty impressive.

VOD via fast internet... sounds good and there are some working applications... but with "everyone" doing it (assuming everyone can afford it) I would imagine it would take an enormous amount of distributive computing power and massive data centres.... priced affordable???? hummm??

Without advertisements... I doubt it.

Then there's the (figuratively) sheer power consumption requirements to drive the servers, cool the servers, disk banks, buildings, transmission equipment etc....

Biggest problem I see with the whole "wireless" nextG distributive internet future is that finally it gives the big existing industry "players" and governments a way of totally usurping and exercising control of the internet / media... the last free bastion of information...

controlled, regulated, corrupted, consumerised... I mean look what the bastards have done in ten years to corrupt the internet, myspace and MSN...

I don't want unsolicited f#%$^en advertisments!!!!!

One example is what Valve and Electronic Arts have done with their games. You have the option now of buying a game online and downloading it instead of waiting for a boxed product to arrive.

Look at Apple iTunes and MS Music Stores. Some movie companies have looked at BitTorrent as a legitimate way of buying movies. Cinemas in the US and Japan are apparently able to access the digital movies via the web. Blueray and HD DVD are awesome advances in technology, the 3T disk is very very impressive. Problem is people want information and media NOW and can't wait or be bothered to go down to buy or rent a movie.

But why would you need a disk that can hold 50GB to play a movie... the TVs that 90% of people have won't even notice a difference. Plus it is just another excuse for piles of landfill like what happened when DVDs came in and everyone replaced their VHS collection.

Would I make use of a 3 Terabyte disk... not unless it is RW... I am struggling to fill 1.2 terabytes on my computer. I could make use of it at work, where 3T would just about backup all our data.

In terms of Blueray and Hd dvd, 50Gb disks, couldn't agree more Tim