Experimental study of optical storage characteristics of photochromic material: pyrrylfulgide

Optical data storage is a frontier in the information science. Currently, there are mainly two kinds of storage materials, i.e., thermal-optic and photonic materials. The storage methods are divided into serial and parallel modes. In the market, the mature technique is CD-RW, which uses the thermal-optic material and serial method. The storage density of the CD-RW is restricted by the size of material particles, the conduction of heat, etc. Besides, the recording speed is seriously limited by the process of heating. Photonic materials and parallel method will be the trend in the optical data storage. Because it is based on the photon reaction on the molecule scale, the storage density and speed will be greatly increased. In this paper, a new kind of organic photochromic material -- pyrrylfulgide was studied. A parallel optical data storage system was established. Using the pyrrylfulgide/PMMA film as a recording medium, micro-images and binary digital information could be recorded, readout and erased in this parallel system. The recorded information on the film can be kept for at least 8 months in dark at room temperature. So far, the storage density is 3 x 107 bit/cm2.