Fast-forward to Better DVDs? Digital video disc (DVD) technology
is by no means new, but that doesn’t mean we know everything
about the way that these devices store our movies and data. New
insights into the way this mature technology works has come from
North Carolina State University researchers using the MR-CAT
beamline 10-ID at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced
Photon Source. Their findings may lead to advances in data
storage as well as within the computer industry as a whole. DVD-
RAMs—or readable/writable DVDs—are composed of an alloy that
contains three elements: germanium, antimony and tellurium. This
alloy is commonly used in data storage technologies due to its
ability to change phases from a crystalline to a non-crystalline
state. The phase changes are what allow the DVD-RAM to take and
hold data. While scientists were familiar with the basic
properties of the alloy, they didn’t know how it worked on a
microscopic level: why one particular ratio of elements worked
better than others. The Nor