FLUORESCENT MULTILAYER DISC (FMD) [civil]

Today the need for digital storage capacity is on increase, with a rate growth of 60% per annum. There is strong requirement for more storage facility for the amenities like the storage area networks, data warehouses, supercomputers and e-commerce related data mining as the volume of data to be processed is ever rising. The arrival of high bandwidth Internet and data-intensive applications such as high-definition TV (HDTV) and video & music on-demand, even smaller devices such as personal VCRs, PDAs, mobile phones etc will require multi-gigabyte and terabyte capacity in the next couple of years.

This ever-increasing capacity demand can only be only managed by the steady increase in the areal density of the magnetic and optical recording media. In future, this density increase is feasible only by taking advantage of the shorter wavelength lasers, higher lens numerical aperture (NA) or by employing near-field techniques. This increase is best achieved with optical memory technologies.

Fluorescent multiplayer disc (FMD) is a three dimensional storage that can store a large volume of data and is also capable of increasing the capacity of a given volume with an aim to achieve a cubic storage element having the dimensions of writing or reading laser wavelength. The current wavelength of 650 µm should be sufficient enough to store up to a Terabyte of data.