Cuneiform-like digital storage tech quadruples data storage — uses three levels of indentation in polymer film
It’s like a CD or DVD, but with varying pit depths and a mechanical stylus.

A team of researchers led by Abigail Mann at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia have developed storage tech that beats binary by being 4x denser. They used a new technique to store data on a polymer film by creating nanoscale indentations with a fine-tip probe that uses an atomic force microscope for movement. According to New Atlas, this technique is similar to how the Mesopotamians stored data on cuneiform tablets, but instead of using reeds and clay tablets, the team used a compound called dicyclopentadiene and sulfur to build the inexpensive polymer film.
CDs and DVDs work exactly like this—a polymer (like acrylic plastic) indented using a laser to store data. However, what makes this technology different is that the indent is made by a fine-tip probe, not by laser light. Furthermore, the polymer developed by the Flinders team is sensitive enough that the depth of each indent can be adjusted on the nanometer scale. According to the report, an area with no indent is 0, while cuts that are 0.3 to 1.0 nanometer deep would indicate a 1. If the indent is 1.5 to 2.5 nanometers deep, then its value is 2.
This means that this polymer could store ternary code, essentially quadrupling its storage capacity versus systems that just use binary. The polymer base is stable, allowing you to store data on it for a significant time, and you can write on it at room temperature. This means you do not have to expend large amounts of energy to write on it.
However, if you heat the polymer to 140 degrees Celsius for 10 seconds, all the data on it will be erased, allowing you to reuse it to store new data. The polymer has already been tested for four write-read-erase-rewrite cycles, proving its hardiness, although that might also mean that you cannot partially delete data stored on it.
“This research unlocks the potential for using simple, renewable polysulfides in probe-based mechanical data storage, offering a potential lower-energy, higher density, and more sustainable alternative to current technologies,” says Mann.
Although most of us use SSDs and hard drives for storage nowadays, the music industry has discovered the hard way that these media aren’t designed for long-term storage. That’s why researchers are still looking at other techniques for the safekeeping of our data, like an optical disk format with a 125TB capacity or this 5D data cube built out of silica glass.
There are still many challenges that face this new data storage technique, like how dust would affect them and how long they would last in storage. But as research continues on this front, we might someday find ourselves buying these “cuneiform drives” to help archive the massive amounts of data we generate in a year.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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USAFRet
"There are still many challenges that face this new data storage technique,"JRStern said:Um, isn't making a physical indentation going to be absurdly slow?
This is just a proof of concept. Speed and optimization comes much later. -
Jame5 Just a reminder: SSDs are not a long term cold storage solution. They are meant to have continual refresh cycles otherwise they risk data loss.Reply
Tapes are still probably the current champion for long term offline cold storage of data. And even they are only rated for 25-30 years. -
edzieba However, what makes this technology different is that the indent is made by a fine-tip probe, not by laser light.
CDs, DVD,s BDs (and CEDs and so on) also do not have their data tracks created by laser light: they are created by mechanical indentation too! Specifically, all are stamped from metal masters, akin to how vinyl records are - the difference is records are just stamped and then left as is, whilst the other media are then metallised after stamping and have an additional protective coating added on top.
CEDs in particular are an interesting comparison: no lasers involved, the read head runs mechanically into a groove on the disc. The difference is that instead of the entire head moving within the groove to read data, the head is larger than the changes in groove depth and runs 'over' the variations, and the variations are read capacitively. This is the same way Scanning Capacitance Microscopy works, akin to Atomic Force Microscopy but with the head being able to track sub-head-size features.
Basically, the researchers have created the CED-RW, just 40 years too late. -
Li Ken-un According to the report, an area with no indent is 0, while cuts that are 0.3 to 1.0 nanometer deep would indicate a 1. If the indent is 1.5 to 2.5 nanometers deep, then its value is 2.
Yes, it is ternary.
This means that this polymer could store ternary code, essentially quadrupling its storage capacity versus systems that just use binary.
No, it does not quadruple the storable capacity versus binary. A trit is equivalent to 1.58 bits, which is not even what MLC is to SLC for NAND. -
usertests
I thought I was going crazy for a second.Li Ken-un said:Yes, it is ternary.
No, it does not quadruple the storable capacity versus binary. A trit is equivalent to 1.58 bits, which is not even what MLC is to SLC for NAND. -
husker If ternary was better, we'd be using ternary by now. That was settled during the mid twentieth century. Binary is the standard and will likely remain so for a whole host of reasons.Reply
Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeros everywhere… and I thought I saw a two!"
Fry: "It was just a dream, Bender. There’s no such thing as two."
https://purepng.com/public/uploads/large/purepng.com-futurama-benderfuturamaanimated-sciencefictionsitcomcartoonfuturama-benderbender-1701528547954f59mh.png -
gaaah It just dawned on me, that I have several dozen CDs and DVDs backing up data and software from long ago. The thing is, I haven't owned a CD/DVD player for at least a decade.Reply -
USAFRet
Exactly!gaaah said:It just dawned on me, that I have several dozen CDs and DVDs backing up data and software from long ago. The thing is, I haven't owned a CD/DVD player for at least a decade.
Obtain a $25 USB DVD drive, and see how many of those discs are unreadable.