Optical data storage in LiF using electron beam encoding

Electron beam generated color centers in LiF are presented as the basis for a new optical data storage scheme. Data are “read” with a confocal microscope. The alkali halide medium is capable of gray scale and multilevel or volumetric storage demonstrating a thermally stable coloration. This initial investigation shows that data can be resolved to less than 0.25 μ resolution with at least three orders of magnitude data scaling. An assessment is made for future work.