02-04-2010, 11:58 AM
ABSTRACT
While magnetic and semi-conductor based information storage devices have been in use since the middle 1950â„¢s, todayâ„¢s computers and volumes of information require increasingly more efficient and faster methods of storing data. Among the most promising of the new alternatives are photopolymer-based devices, holographic optical memory storage devices, and protein-based optical memory storage using rhodopsin , photosynthetic reaction centers. This paper focuses mainly on protein-based optical memory storage using the photosensitive protein bacteriorhodopsin with the two-photon method of exciting the molecules, and briefly explains how this memory is processed.
Protein based storage is an experimental means of storing data. Using proteins that respond to light from bacteria found in salt water, a small cube can store large amounts of data. By using lasers the protein can be changed depending on various wave lengths, allowing them to store and recall data. As a result protein can be used to store enormous amounts of data using lasers to read and write binary code. With this new found technology scientists are now developing a larger more efficient storage media.Bacteriorhodopsin is a light-harvesting protein from bacteria that live in salt marshes that has shown some promise as a feasible optical data storage. The current work is to hybridize this biological molecule with the solid state components of a typical computer. It uses the protein apoferritin, the main molecule in which iron is stored in the body, to create a material consisting of magnetic particles each just a few nanometers in diameter. Several biological molecules are being considered for use in computers, but the bacterial protein-Bacteriorhodopsin (bR)-has generated much interest among scientists.
This protein memory plays critical role in Artificial Intelligence development. This find its application in military field as it is rugged one as compared with semiconductor memories. Main disadavantage is this memory may exhaust after certain years and we have to refresh it thoroughly. The molecular optical memory research underway by Prof. Robert Birge and his group at Syracuse University. Using the purple membrane from the bacterium Halobacterium Halobium, theyâ„¢ve made a working optical bistable switch, fabricated in a monolayer by self-assembly, that reliably stores data with 10,000 molecules per bit. The molecule switches in 500 femtosecondsâ€thatâ„¢s 1/2000 of a nanosecond, and the actual speed of the memory is currently limited by how fast you can steer a laser beam to the correct spot on the memory.
