Synthetic chemistry is a powerful tool for developing new materials and dictating their properties in a bottom up approach. The Pentzer lab uses fundamental organic chemistry reactions to tune functionality and in turn the properties of small molecules, polymers, and nanoparticles with aims to improve the efficiency of the interconversion and storage of energy. This seminar will focus on the development of an optical data storage system that can store data in a quaternary code of 0, 1, 2, 3. Typically, a binary system (0, 1) is used to store data, for example, by locally changing the optical properties of the medium, as in CDs. Ongoing engineering-based approaches to increasing the density of data storage focus using multilayer films for patterning of voxels (3D pixels) or smaller data units (i.e., Blu-ray versus DVD). We will present a polymer-based system for optical data storage in which two orthogonally stimuli-responsive small molecule dyes are incorporated into a polymer matrix; one small molecule becomes fluorescent upon irradiation with UV light, and the other becomes fluorescent upon heating. Before stimulus is applied, the polymer film is transparent, colorless, and without fluorescence; photo-irradiation yields blue fluorescence, thermal-irradiation yields green fluorescence, and both thermal- and photo-irradiation yields cyan fluorescence. This straightforward and scalable method enables polymer films to store quaternary information (0, 1, 2, 3).

Beyond binary: Optical data storage in a quaternary code

255th National Meeting (2018)

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