Photonic nanojet-enabled optical data storage

Abstract

We show that our recently reported microwave photonic jet technique for detection of deeply subwavelength pits in a metal substrate can be extended to optical wavelengths for purposes of high-density data storage. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain computational solutions of Maxwell's equations are used to optimize the photonic nanojet and pit configuration to account for the Drude dispersion of an aluminum substrate in the spectral range near lambda= 400 nm. Our results show that nanojet-illuminated pits having lateral dimensions of only 50 nm x 80 nm yield a contrast ratio 27 dB greater than previously reported using a lens system for pits of similar area. Such pits are much smaller than BluRay features. The high detection contrast afforded by the photonic nanojet could potentially yield significant increases in data density and throughput relative to current commercial optical data-storage systems while retaining the basic geometry of the storage medium.

Photonic atoms and molecules

“…The high detection contrast afforded by the photonic nanojet could potentially yield significant increases in data density and throughput relative to current commercial optical data-storage systems, while retaining the basic geometry of the storage medium [77]. This could also yield a potential novel ultramicroscopy technique using visible light for detecting proteins, viral particles, and even single molecules; and monitoring molecular synthesis and aggregation processes of importance in many areas of biology, chemistry, material sciences, and tissue engineering [74].…”

Almost Periodic Lumped Elements Structure Modeling Using Iterative Method: Application to Photonic Jets and Planar Lenses

“…To date, several jet photonics-based applications have been considered and implemented for molecules detection [3], optical imaging, data storage [4] and high-resolution microscopy or nonlinear optical effects [5,6]. Among these applications, most studies and developed applications were based on obtaining a photonic jet from the interaction of an electromagnetic wave with obstacles having spherical [7,8], cylindrical [9] or elliptic shapes [10,11], but some of them are interested in producing of planar jets.…”

Data storage based on photochromic and photoconvertible fluorescent proteins

“…Although efforts have been made to increase the storage density in these optical discs e.g. by using shorter wavelengths (Blu-ray technology) and by reducing the pit size (Kong et al, 2008), the two-dimensional approach evidently runs into a physical limitation in terms of achievable data density.…”