The explosive growth of data generated by artificial intelligence, cloud computing and modern digital infrastructure is placing increasing pressure on existing information storage technologies. Although magnetic storage systems such as hard disk drives remain the dominant platform for digital storage, they face challenges including rising costs, limited lifespan and relatively slow information retrieval.

To address these challenges, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a new optical information storage platform that uses engineered diffractive structures to store and rapidly retrieve thousands of images.

The UCLA team introduced a wavelength-multiplexed diffractive optical storage system composed of multiple passive dielectric layers that are spatially engineered using deep learning. The research is published in the journal Advanced Photonics.