How to Burn a Three Terabyte CD

A new nano-optical device can focus laser light tighter than traditional optics, which could lead to higher-density data storage.

As gigabytes of movies, pictures, audio, and text fill up more and more CDs and DVDs, there's clearly a need for better ways to save more data. A research team at Harvard University has developed a technique that could help to significantly boost the capacity of conventional optical discs. They've fabricated a nano antenna--built directly onto an inexpensive, off-the-shelf laser--that focuses light to a much smaller spot size than is possible with even the best traditional lenses, potentially enabling more bits to be written onto an optical disc.

With this you'd be able to pack more than three terabytes [3,000 gigabytes] worth of data onto something the size of a CD.

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