The need for information storage is exploding. Now some Harvard University researchers are taking that idea literally. They are using an extremely fast laser to trigger tiny explosions that create "microcraters" to encode data.
Physics professor Eric Mazur uses red laser pulses lasting a mere 100 femtoseconds to explode glass and other translucent materials. One femtosecond is a billionth of a millionth of a second; there are as many femtoseconds in a second as there are minutes in the age of the universe.
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