Thousands of years in the future, what remnants will endure from our digital age? The vast expanse of human knowledge, once housed in libraries, now relies on short-lived hard drives. Microsoft revealed in a recent study that using lasers to etch information into glass could preserve data for over 10,000 years.
Since 2019, Microsoft’s Silica initiative has been exploring the encoding of data onto glass plates, reminiscent of the early photographic era when negatives were stored on glass. This innovative system utilizes silica glass, a durable material resistant to environmental factors like temperature fluctuations, moisture, and electromagnetic disturbances.
In a publication in the journal Nature, Microsoft’s research division declared Silica as the pioneering glass storage technology proven to be dependable for writing, reading, and decoding data. Nonetheless, external experts caution that challenges still confront this emerging technology. The process involves converting bits of data into symbols representing three-dimensional pixels known as voxels.
A high-energy laser pulse is then employed to inscribe these minute voxels onto square glass plates similar in size to a CD. The study elucidated that symbols are inscribed layer by layer, starting from the bottom and filling the complete thickness of the glass.
