Anisotropic nanostructure generated by a spatial-temporal manipulated picosecond pulse for multidimensional optical data storage

Anisotropic nanostructures can be generated in fused silica glass by manipulating the spatiotemporal properties of a picosecond pulse. This phenomenon is attributed to laser-induced interband self-trapped excitons. The anisotropic structures exhibit birefringent properties, and thus can be employed for multi-dimensional optical data storage applications. Data voxels generated by such short laser irradiation enable on-the-fly high-speed data recording.