# Holy Crap! Data Storage Using a SINGLE Photon! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 23, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103 "2007-01-23T16:06:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/1 "2007-01-23T16:06:32Z")
[If this pans out, you can plan on throwing out your new HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player.](http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2723) > [@](#): > > Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image’s worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact. > > While the initial test image consists of only a few hundred pixels, a tremendous amount of information can be stored with the new technique. > > The image, a “UR” for the University of Rochester, was made using a single pulse of light and the team can fit as many as a hundred of these pulses at once into a tiny, four-inch cell. Squeezing that much information into so small a space and retrieving it intact opens the door to optical buffering—storing information as light. Can optical computing be next? ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/2 "2007-01-23T16:08:25Z")
I have been saying for years that optical computing will be the next revolutionary breakthrough. I’m glad it’s starting to happen. Amazing times we live in. Amazing times. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/3 "2007-01-23T17:39:14Z")
And I’m feeling a little bad that absolutely none of the amazingness is my doing. I’m just along for the ride, you know? ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/4 "2007-01-23T17:45:39Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] And I’m feeling a little bad that absolutely none of the amazingness is my doing. I’m just along for the ride, you know? [/QUOTE] Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/5 "2007-01-23T17:54:20Z")
I don’t see how a single photon can be detected in more than one pixel of the camera. I wonder if they actually mean “light level so low that only one photon at a time goes through the stencil”? ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/6 "2007-01-23T18:24:07Z")
[QUOTE=Winston Smith] Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too. 🆒 [/QUOTE] If only I could be so socially useful. Unfortunately, I work in health care. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/7 "2007-01-23T18:43:07Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t see how a single photon can be detected in more than one pixel of the camera. I wonder if they actually mean “light level so low that only one photon at a time goes through the stencil”? If you read the article that does indeed seem to be what they’re saying. > [@](#): > > To produce the UR image, Howell simply shone a beam of light through a stencil with the U and R etched out. Anyone who has made shadow puppets knows how this works, **but Howell turned down the light so much that a single photon was all that passed through the stencil**. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/8 "2007-01-23T19:25:03Z")
Sounds like the Tabernacle From \*\*Zardoz \*\* is getting close now. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/9 "2007-01-23T21:50:07Z")
So _that’s_ how [THESE](http://www.sevensixfive.net/GIANT_ROBOT/superman%20solitude.jpg) work! Now we can all finally have set just like this, in our own home theatre. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/10 "2007-01-23T22:12:09Z")
It would be cool if the first such image was from the beginning of the Bible’s book of Genesis. Either that, or “Sic Luceat Lux” (“let the light shine”), with or without the “Tree of Life” illustration. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/11 "2007-01-23T22:34:20Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] If only I could be so socially useful. Unfortunately, I work in health care. [/QUOTE] That’s why I’m glad my job is manually masterbating pigs for artificial insemination. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/12 "2007-01-23T22:56:00Z")
Unfortunately, the encoded information was lost when a careless research assistant accidentally used the same photon to record “Oprah.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/13 "2007-01-23T22:57:26Z")
> [@](#): > > It would be cool if the first such image was from the beginning of the Bible’s book of Genesis. Either that, or “Sic Luceat Lux” (“let the light shine”), with or without the “Tree of Life” illustration. I think it should be a picture of a Fiat belonging to someone named Luke. Then you could call it _Luke’s Fiat_ ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/14 "2007-01-24T03:16:05Z")
Imagine encoding the Library of Congress or something on it, and then losing it… "Dammit, it was right here in the chamber! Wait a minute… did anyone else see anything fluoresce? Uh-oh." ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/15 "2007-01-24T09:55:51Z")
'Course y’all realize this amazing new technology will probably mainly be used to store even-vaster amounts of porn. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/16 "2007-01-24T10:09:09Z")
It looks as though this is some kind of play on the double-slit experiment, where a single photon behaves as if it passed through both slits at the same time. But I don’t see how a multi-pixel image like this can be discerned from a single photon - photons are quantized, aren’t they? Doesn’t this sound like it violates imformation/compression theory? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/17 "2007-01-24T11:13:33Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] But I don’t see how a multi-pixel image like this can be discerned from a single photon - photons are quantized, aren’t they? Doesn’t this sound like it violates imformation/compression theory? [/QUOTE] Indeed. I suspect that the journalist didn’t fully understand and messed up in his explanation. From what I’ve read about photon-based data storage, a photon serves as a replacement for a bit. So their 4" cell is probably a 100-photonbit write-only (?) memory chip that they used as a black and white bitmap. Though from the image in the article it seems like they’ve got some spots hotter than others. So maybe my understanding is wrong, or there are actually multiple photons in some squares? Certainly in the electricity word, you have to set that a certain range of charge is zero and another range is one. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/18 "2007-01-24T11:24:51Z")
Ah, reading it again, I think I understand. He only shot a single photon, but that’s **per pulse**. It’s probably like drawing to a CTR, I think. For each pulse it aims at a different square in the cell, sending a single photon into it. So you might aim at the top left corner, shoot a pulse, aim one to right, shoot, one to the right, shoot, etc. And then depending on how much of the photon was blocked, it will have more “charge” in it’s cell. Pretty cool! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/19 "2007-01-24T11:27:26Z")
To be honest, it sounds like the article might be conflating several different emerging technologies - single pixel cameras, single photon sensors (or single electron memories), and optical buffering, only the latter of which seems to be the real subject of the research ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103/20 "2007-01-24T14:46:20Z")
[QUOTE=MEBuckner] 'Course y’all realize this amazing new technology will probably mainly be used to store even-vaster amounts of porn. [/QUOTE] CEO of Seagate Technologies: > [@Bill Watkins](#): > > “Let’s face it. We’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap – and watch porn.” > > – As quoted by Fortune magazine during a corporate dinner in San Francisco recently. [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72320-0.html](http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72320-0.html) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-data-storage-using-a-single-photon/389103.md?page=2)