I-Photonics Technology for High Capacity Optical Storage

Three researchers at the Swinburne’s Centre for Micro-Photonics (CMP) have been awarded $6.5 million CNY ($1.1 million AUD) from National Natural Science Foundation of China for two information photonics (I-Photonics) research projects through the established collaborations with two institutes in China.

I-Photonics has been playing an important role in the daily life of people in various aspects including communication, display and information storage. In particular, high-definition optical display and ultra-high capacity optical storage are the two leading technologies contributing to the prosperity of our digital economy.

Over the last two years, Professor Min Gu and Dr Xiangping Li have initiated an international collaboration with Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) to address the bottleneck issues in naked-eye three-dimensional display. The awarded Key Program for International S & T Cooperation Project ($3 million CNY) from National Natural Science Foundation of China brings the complementary expertise from the nanophotonics at Swinburne and large-scale optical engineering at BIT together. The funding covers a range of collaborative activities include exchange program, mutual student foster program, joint experiment and development of pilot prototypes.

As one of the important aspects in the I-Photonics technology chain, high capacity optical storage has been heralded as ultimate solutions to the big storage. In particular, it can provide sustainable techniques for petabyte data centres.

Dr. Xiangping Li and Dr. Yaoyu Cao has been collaborating with renowned computer scientists in Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics to jointly develop the optical storage array techniques.

The advisor of this project, Prof. Min Gu, said: “This is a critical step to accelerate the translation of the petabyte optical storage technique developed at the CMP toward the new platform of photonic data centres.“

The awarded Major Program fund ($3.5 million CNY) from National Natural Science Foundation of China will allow them to develop the pilot prototype of optical storage arrays.