Chinese scientists are studying a way to build rewritable optical storage devices made of silk proteins that could be implanted in a human body. The resulting storage may look like crystalline disks implanted into the bodies of the conspirators on the 2008 Fringe TV show. But is such a move feasible? The silk protein optical storage device uses a silk fibroin-based thin-film solution that is spin-coated onto a gold or silicon substrate. The silk solution acts like aluminum layers on typical Blu-rays or DVDs, but while the discs are
imprimen '' en una fábrica, los dispositivos de proteína de seda deben write '' that optical discs are recorded in a drive. The recording technique used is called tip-enhanced near-field infrared nanolithography (TNINL) and uses scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) equipped with a mid-infrared laser light source.
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(Image credit: Global Times)
Implantable storage
According to Chinese and American researchers, they have so far managed to achieve a storage density of around 64 GB per square inch, which is much lower than conventional 3D NAND. But unlike flash memory and optical discs, silk protein storage devices can be implanted into a human without damage and can survive heat, high humidity, gamma radiation and high magnetic fields. "Silk protein is a never-before-used storage medium, which traditionally uses a semiconductor," said Tao Hu, one of the study's authors and a researcher at the Institute for Microsystems. and Shanghai Information Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (SIMIT), he told the Global Times. "The biological compatibility of the silk impulse is good, and it can be implanted in living organisms, such as the human body, which can be preserved for a long time or even forever." It should be noted that at this stage, the research is rather theoretical. The scientists say they could use atomic force microscopy to read written data by recognizing the topographic bumps as 0 and 1. They also plan to use a laser reading technique that would allow traditional binary code to be swapped. versus something more advanced to allow for higher storage densities. In any case, there are no commercially available read and write devices for this type of "hard drive". Furthermore, once the disk is implanted, it is impossible to read until it is removed. The researchers say they are working on optimizing the storage of silk proteins for commercial purposes. One of the applications for these readers is a never-lose dog tag that can store tons of various information. During this time, they never said when it might be released. Sources: PhysicsWorld, GlobalTimes, Nature