Fluorescent Multilayer Storage (FMS)

What is FMS?

The article below was written in 2002, and updated last year with news about the demise of Constellation 3D. Now in late 2004 it seems that there is no-one picking up FMS which is a pity as the technology promised a lot, so this is historical interest only. If you know different, please mail me.

One of the problems with holographic storage is that the reflected laser light has the same frequency as the read beam, so the two interfere with each other. FMS works on a different principle. It still uses a laser beam to read multi-layer optical storage, but when it reads the substrate, it emits fluorescent light at a different wavelength. This means there is no interference between the two light beams.
Potentially, this means that FMS can store up to a terrabyte in 100 layers on a DVD size disk, and read it back in parallel at 1GB/s.

Constellation 3D inc. were the main developers of FMS, and much of the technology below refers to their 'ClearCard' product. However, the company appears to have gone out of business. If so, this is a pity, as the technology looked very promising. Hopefully someone else will pick it up.

FMS technology

The FMS recording media consists of layers of substrate, which contain 'pits' of fluorescent material, each about 0.5um across. These substrate layers are bound together in 10-50 layers, and held on a support platter, which could be like a CD-ROM or like a credit card.

The read heads are very similar to a DVD drive, except they have the ability to read more layers. This means that a FMS drive could read a DVD disk, which could help the product the gain acceptance.

WORM (write once read many) heads use heat to destroy the fluorescent material in selected 'pits', to create a digital pattern. Once the pattern is burnt in, it is permanent.

FMS futures

Constellation 3D planned to roll FMS out in three stages

1. FMC/ROM
   Two products were produced, a 50GB 12 platter device on a modified DVD size disk, which transferred data at 100Mb/s, and a 20 layer 10GB credit card sized device.
2. FMC/C
   A WORM device using 10 layers to store 1GB was ready, and plans were made to go to a 20 layer, 10GB device.
3. R/W
   A complete read/write device was planned, which is credit card size, and will hold 4.7GB.

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