Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a method to arrange nanoscale elements precisely over large surfaces, which could have a significant impact on data storage.

"The scientists said they achieved a storage density of 10Tb (125GB) per square inch, which is 15 times the density of past solutions, with no defects," writes IDG's Stephen Lawson.

"The density achievable with the technology we've developed could potentially enable the contents of 250 DVDs to fit onto a surface the size of a quarter," says UC Berkeley assistant professor Ting Xu.

"I expect that the new method we developed will transform the microelectronic and storage industries, and open up vistas for entirely new applications," says Thomas Russell, director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UMass Amherst.

The research appears in the February 20th issue of the journal Science.

More here from Forbes ... and the press release is here.