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Thursday, 21st May 2009 (1339 views)

Australian scientists have used gold in the development of a new DVD that can store thousands of movies.

Scientists at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne have employed nanorods made from the precious metal to help create discs that can store information using both colour and light polarisation, according to the Nature journal.

Current discs hold information in three dimensions - length, width and height - but the new models, which could be available within ten years, will have at least 2,000 times more storage.

"We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated on to a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc," professor Min Gu of the research team explained.

In order to achieve the extra storage, light is projected at the disc and then aligned with the gold nanorods, meaning different data can be accessed depending on the angle of the light source.

Elsewhere in the nanotechnology sector, scientists are considering adding gold to a newly-developed fuel cell catalyst in order to further improve its stability.

 

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