Polymers as substrates and media for data storage

Technological developments in the 1990s will be determined by progress in the field of microelectronics, particularly with regard to information processing and data storage. Progress in information storage is directly related to the ability to store large amounts of data in the smallest possible space, preferably in erasable form. Polymers are used as components in the standard storage systems of today: as carrier films for magnetic tapes, as photoresists and electron beam resists, and as substrates for magnetic and optical discs used for music or video replication and data storage. Storage systems with higher packing densities such as magnetooptical and phase change systems or memories based on photopolymers or polymers with liquid crystalline side chains are currently under development. In these systems, polymers will be used both as components and as actual storage materials. The development and the availability of advanced erasable memories with high storage densities could be accelerated by the availability and the system-related modification of “intelligent” polymer materials. Worldwide activities in this interesting field have barely progressed beyond the initial stages. This progress report describes the current state of the art and compares the various developments in an attempt to forecast the possible significance of polymer memories with high data packaging densities in relation to the established technologies.