Now, liquid crystal technology for better data storage

Japanese scientists have developed a stable, rewritable memory device that exploits a liquid crystal property called the "anchoring transition."

 

The work by scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology - an advance in the use of liquid crystal technologies - is described in the Journal of Applied Physics.

 

Using either a laser beam or an electric field, the researchers can align rod-like liquid crystal molecules in a polymer. Their tests show that the liquid crystal created by the team can store data, be erased and used again.

 

Hideo Takezoe, who led the research, said: "This is the first rewritable memory device utilizing anchoring transition."

 

And because the device is bi-stable - the liquid crystals retain their orientation in one of two directions - it needs no power to keep images, added Takezoe.