NOVEL MULTI-LAYER OPTICAL MASS STORAGE TECHNOLOGY

NUMEROUS PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING REQUIRE POWERFUL COMPUTERS WITH TERA-FLOP SPEEDS WHICH WILL DEMAND THE CONCURRENT AVAILABILITY OF MASS STORAGE MEDIA WITH T-BYTE CAPACITIES AND DATA RATES EXCEEDING 1 GIGA-BIT/SEC. THIS PROPOSAL INTRODUCES A NEW READ-WRITE OPTICAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGY THAT MEETS THE REQUIREMENTS TO ENABLE MANY PROCESSORS TO WORK IN PARALLEL WHERE DATA CAN BE STORED IN THREE DIMENSIONS AND RETRIEVED VERY FAST. THE NEW TECHNOLOGY, WHICH WILL ENABLE THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATERIALS FOR OPTICAL STORAGE AND DATA RETRIEVAL METHODS WITHOUT CROSS-TALK BETWEEN CHANNELS, IS BASED ON THE CHOLESTERIC LIQUID CRYSTAL (CLC) POLYMER PROPERTY OF SELECTIVE REFLECTION AT A CHARACTERISTIC WAVELENGTH. EACH LAYER IN A MULTI-CLC-LAYER STORAGE MEDIUM HAS A DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTIC WAVELENGTH, MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO RANDOMLY SELECT ANY LAYER FOR READING OR WRITING. IT IS PROJECTED THAT A 16 T-BYTE ERASABLE MASS STORAGE SYSTEM WITH A DATA RATE OF 1.6 T-BIT/SEC CAN BE BUILT USING REVEO'S BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY. IN PHASE I A 5-LAYER STORAGE SYSTEM WILL BE DESIGNED AND THE FEASIBILITY OF RANDOM LAYER ADDRESSING DEMONSTRATED. THE PHASE I DESIGN WILL BE BUILT IN PHASE II TO DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY O TECHNOLOGY, WITH PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE TECHNOLOGY TO FOLLOW IN PHASE III. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS/POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS - SUPERCOMPUTERS WITH TERA-FLOP SPEEDS WILL GREATLY BENEFIT NUMEROUS APPLICATIONS SUCH AS AERODYNAMICS FOR ADVANCED AIRCRAFT DESIGNS, CHEMICAL MODELLING, GALACTIC DYNAMICS, AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE. SUCH MACHINES DEMAND CONCURRENT AVAILABILITY OF MASS STORAGE SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF TERA-BYTE CAPACITIES AND DATA RATES > I GIGA-BIT/SEC. THIS PROPOSAL DESCRIBES A TECHNOLOGY THAT MEETS THESE REQUIREMENTS.