Forget Hard Drives —Your Next Memory Device Could Be Plastic

Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a groundbreaking way to store digital data using plastic. Inspired by DNA’s ability to store vast amounts of information in a tiny space for centuries, the team created a synthetic polymer-based system that works in a similar way but without the need for expensive equipment.

Instead of using DNA's nucleotides, the researchers designed four different plastic molecules, or monomers, each with unique electrochemical properties. By combining them in specific sequences, they built a new alphabet of 256 possible symbols. Using this system, they successfully encoded and later decoded a complex password: “Dh&@dR%P0W¢”.

Electric Signals Instead of Lasers

What makes this method unique is its ability to read data through electric signals, without bulky or costly tools like lasers or mass spectrometers. When a molecule breaks down under different voltages, it reveals which monomer it is. This process allows scientists to piece together the full sequence of encoded data.

Challenges and Future Steps

Currently, the decoding process destroys the molecule, meaning data can only be read once. Also, decoding the 11-character password took about 2.5 hours. However, the team plans to link these polymers to microchips for faster, computer-based reading.

This innovation could lead to highly compact, long-lasting data storage systems that outperform today’s hard drives and flash memory.