Diamonds: The Future Of Data Storage?

According to research, there is an unexpected connection between CD/DVD data carriers and diamonds. Yes, that little piece of compressed carbon is actually capable of carrying vast amounts of information, yet unreachable by the currently developed technologies.

Phys shares that according to Prof. Carlos Meriles at City College of the City University of New York (CUNY) claims it is possible to write information into diamonds, by exploiting the charge state and spin properties of the Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in the diamond.

Prof. Meriles’ group has managed to write data unto a data crystal with a two-dimensional density which is similar to the one of a DVD disk. They believe that soon it will be possible to write information onto a three-dimensional diamond carrier, without this affecting the quality of the written information.
This method of data preservation is considered indefinite for as long as the diamond is kept in a dark space.

New York Times shares a simplified explanation of the science behind the process. All diamonds have flaws and the more flawed it is, the better it is for data keeping. It all starts with the nitrogen vacancy center, which is an atomic-sized imperfection on the diamond. The reason this happens is that sometimes a stray nitrogen atom would enter the carbon structure. Deleting a carbon atom leaves an empty space, a cavity one might call it, which is just perfect for data storage.

Live Science shares the future plans of the professors about their creation. They plan on developing methods of reading and writing data on nano sized bits of diamond crystal. Developing this technology will allow for the creation optimized diamond chips, whose storage capabilities will be times greater than the ones of a conventional hard-drive.

Is the future here? Will we soon see the data crystals of Sci-fi come into our everyday reality? Prof. Carlos Meriles and his colleagues are completely sure that this is true.