Scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics have successfully produced an optical disc with a capacity of 1.6 Petabit (200 Terabyte). This is a much higher capacity than the 128GB that can be stored on a UIltra HD Blu-Ray single disc.
High capacity is achieved by storing data on the disk surface in three dimensions and hundreds of layers. Finally, the size of the laser spot (spot size) is only 54 nm and the distance between the tracks on the disc surface (track pitch) is as small as 70 nm. Again for comparison the laser point on a DVD is 530nm and the distance between tracks is 320nm. With this information density can be increased in the same optical disk surface area.
This technology is still in the research stage. A dedicated dual-laser system is required not only to write data but also to read stored information.
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