Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3.31 Scheme of a volumetric molecular memory on the basis of bacteriorhodopsin
Fig. 3.32 Recording and reading information in a volumetric molecular memory on the basis of
bacteriorhodopsin
point, the system of red lasers is switched on with radiation direction which is
perpendicular to the plane of the page. It illuminates the page via an LCD display
such that only selected elements of the page are switched to the Q-state
corresponding to the digit value “1.” The rest of the bacteriorhodopsin molecule
are switched to the initial state, thus preserving the digit values of “0.”
In order to read out the data the page is again activated by a system of green
lasers. In this case the bacteriorhodopsin molecules that remained in the ground
state (“0”) switch to the O-state within ~2 ms. After that the page is illuminated by
red lasers whose radiation is absorbed by the molecules in the O-state and not
absorbed by the molecules in the Q-state. The positions of the medium elements
containing molecules in the Q-state can be registered by measuring the red radiation
passing through the cuvette by a CCD (charge-coupled device) detector.
The memory can be erased by switching all bacteriorhodopsin molecules into the
ground state using a blue laser.
Small lifetimes of bacteriorhodopsin intermediates and parallel simultaneous
information processing on the page allow for reducing the read/write times to
