Washington, Dec 24 (ANI): Researchers at the Sakhrat Khizroev’s lab at the University of California, Riverside have developed nanolasers, which are so tiny that they point to a future where a 10-terabit hard drive is only one-inch square.

The lasers can concentrate light as small as 30 nanometers. This is 50 times the data density of today’s magnetic storage technology, a technology that has nearly reached its limit for continued miniaturization.

The study, led by Professor Dmitri Litvinov, plans to refine the nanolaser to produce light beams as small as five or 10 nanometers.

To achieve this, the researchers plan to improve the manufacture of their nanolasers by refining the precision of the focused gallium ion beams used for their fabrication.

Khizroev’s lab adapted this technology, commonly used for diagnostics in semiconductor manufacture, to cut the components of their lasers.

The researchers insisted that the 10-terabit hard drive would be a near-term innovation, appearing in as little as two years.

The implications of the ability to focus light at these scales are even more fantastic in the longer term.

The scientists added that the use of photochromic proteins with nanolasers should help lead to nanocomputers and the ability to store still more data in smaller places.

The study is published in Technology Review. (ANI)