WORM Memory Based on DNA Biopolymer Nanocomposite

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An inexpensive DNA information-storage device
Researchers from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have created a DNA-based memory device that is write-once-read-many-times (WORM), and that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to encode information. The device consists of a thin film of salmon DNA that has been embedded with silver nanoparticles and then sandwiched between two electrodes. Shining UV light on the system enables a light-triggered synthesis process that causes the silver atoms to cluster into nano-sized particles, and readies the system for data encoding. In some cases, using DNA may be less expensive to process into storage devices than using traditional, inorganic materials like silicon, the researchers say.