DLMS Optical Memories
Abstract
The concept of Dye Labeled Microsphere (DLMS) based optical memory is based on the use of morphological resonances in microspheres to form a 3-D memory where two dimensions are spatial and the spectral frequency constitutes the third dimension. Following the successful feasibility demonstration of the Phase 1 concept, the second phase thrust was: (1) improve dye material switching speed and near IR sensitivity, (2) perform theoretical studies of the morphological resonance to estimate storage density, (3) perform a study to project DLMS based system performance. In the area of material development and synthesis we have studied and demonstrated several methods of controlling the attachment or coupling of the chromosphere molecules (dye material) to polystyrene microspheres. We also performed a systematic exploration of the production of other functionalized microspheres. In addition, we have synthesized a high performance Thio Indigo dye, characterized and evaluated its bi-stable characteristics. For theoretical studies we have developed a Mathematical package for Mie scattering from structures exhibiting the MDR effect. The study results indicated that a real storage density is worse than conventional optical disk. 3-D cubic packing of the microspheres would improve storage, but the large pixel size required is impractical. In order to exploit the high efficiency dyes developed by this effort, we redirected the effort towards 2-D memory application. However, the result with Thio-indigo and its derivatives show a relatively low spectral conversion rate, which is insufficient for optical memory applications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA336745
Entities
People
- C. S. Wu
- L. R. Dalton
- U. Efron
Organizations
- HRL Laboratories