Holographic storage techniques, which record data using interfering beams of light, could tally information at tens to hundreds of times the density of DVDs. Unfortunately holographic recording media generally fail to meet the practical requirements that would make them competitive with conventional technologies, and often come up short in terms of stability, cost, and processing simplicity. The manufacturing process for the new medium does not require the high temperatures typical of glass making, therefore thermally sensitive compounds could be included in the material. The resulting medium is rigid, stable, and can be cast in virtually any thickness, allowing the production of slab-like structures with unprecedented data storage capacities. Once recorded, data are permanently inscribed in the new material, but future developments may lead to re-writeable media as well as other applications including optical interconnects, neural networks, and image processing devices.
Plastic is an artificial polymer material usually made conducting by adding impurities.
At room temperature the sample is a good conductor, and at temperatures below 2.35 K it actually becomes superconducting. The needed extra encouragement for superconductivity comes in the form of charges injected via overlying electrodes situated in a transistor- like setup.